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  • LVM / Device Mapper maps wrong device

    - by DaDaDom
    Hi, I run a LVM setup on a raid1 created by mdadm. md2 is based on sda6 (major:minor 8:6) and sdb6 (8:22). md2 is partition 9:2. The VG on top of md2 has 4 LVs, var, home, usr, tmp. First the problem: While booting it seems as if the device mapper takes the wrong partition for the mapping! Immediately after boot the information is like ~# dmsetup table systemlvm-home: 0 4194304 linear 8:22 384 systemlvm-home: 4194304 16777216 linear 8:22 69206400 systemlvm-home: 20971520 8388608 linear 8:22 119538048 systemlvm-home: 29360128 6291456 linear 8:22 243270016 systemlvm-tmp: 0 2097152 linear 8:22 41943424 systemlvm-usr: 0 10485760 linear 8:22 20971904 systemlvm-var: 0 10485760 linear 8:22 10486144 systemlvm-var: 10485760 6291456 linear 8:22 4194688 systemlvm-var: 16777216 4194304 linear 8:22 44040576 systemlvm-var: 20971520 10485760 linear 8:22 31457664 systemlvm-var: 31457280 20971520 linear 8:22 48234880 systemlvm-var: 52428800 33554432 linear 8:22 85983616 systemlvm-var: 85983232 115343360 linear 8:22 127926656 ~# cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md2 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sda6[0] 151798080 blocks [2/1] [U_] md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] 96256 blocks [2/2] [UU] md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1] 2931776 blocks [2/2] [UU] I have to manually "lvchange -an" all LVs, add /dev/sdb6 back to the raid and reactivate the LVs, then all is fine. But it prevents me from automounting the partitions and obviously leads to a bunch of other problems. If everything works fine, the information is like ~$ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md2 : active raid1 sdb6[1] sda6[0] 151798080 blocks [2/2] [UU] ... ~# dmsetup table systemlvm-home: 0 4194304 linear 9:2 384 systemlvm-home: 4194304 16777216 linear 9:2 69206400 systemlvm-home: 20971520 8388608 linear 9:2 119538048 systemlvm-home: 29360128 6291456 linear 9:2 243270016 systemlvm-tmp: 0 2097152 linear 9:2 41943424 systemlvm-usr: 0 10485760 linear 9:2 20971904 systemlvm-var: 0 10485760 linear 9:2 10486144 systemlvm-var: 10485760 6291456 linear 9:2 4194688 systemlvm-var: 16777216 4194304 linear 9:2 44040576 systemlvm-var: 20971520 10485760 linear 9:2 31457664 systemlvm-var: 31457280 20971520 linear 9:2 48234880 systemlvm-var: 52428800 33554432 linear 9:2 85983616 systemlvm-var: 85983232 115343360 linear 9:2 127926656 I think that LVM for some reason just "takes" /dev/sdb6 which is then missing in the raid. I tried almost all options in the lvm.conf but none seems to work. Below is some more information, like config files. Does anyone have any idea about what is going on here and how to prevent that? If you need any additional information, please let me know Thanks in advance! Dominik The information (off a "repaired" system): ~# cat /etc/debian_version 5.0.4 ~# uname -a Linux kermit 2.6.26-2-686 #1 SMP Wed Feb 10 08:59:21 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux ~# lvm version LVM version: 2.02.39 (2008-06-27) Library version: 1.02.27 (2008-06-25) Driver version: 4.13.0 ~# cat /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf DEVICE partitions ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=00.90 UUID=11e9dc6c:1da99f3f:b3088ca6:c6fe60e9 ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=00.90 UUID=92ed1e4b:897361d3:070682b3:3baa4fa1 ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=00.90 UUID=601d4642:39dc80d7:96e8bbac:649924ba ~# mount /dev/md1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro) tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw) udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620) /dev/md0 on /boot type ext3 (rw) /dev/mapper/systemlvm-usr on /usr type reiserfs (rw) /dev/mapper/systemlvm-tmp on /tmp type reiserfs (rw) /dev/mapper/systemlvm-home on /home type reiserfs (rw) /dev/mapper/systemlvm-var on /var type reiserfs (rw) ~# grep -v ^$ /etc/lvm/lvm.conf | grep -v "#" devices { dir = "/dev" scan = [ "/dev" ] preferred_names = [ ] filter = [ "a|/dev/md.*|", "r/.*/" ] cache_dir = "/etc/lvm/cache" cache_file_prefix = "" write_cache_state = 1 sysfs_scan = 1 md_component_detection = 1 ignore_suspended_devices = 0 } log { verbose = 0 syslog = 1 overwrite = 0 level = 0 indent = 1 command_names = 0 prefix = " " } backup { backup = 1 backup_dir = "/etc/lvm/backup" archive = 1 archive_dir = "/etc/lvm/archive" retain_min = 10 retain_days = 30 } shell { history_size = 100 } global { umask = 077 test = 0 units = "h" activation = 1 proc = "/proc" locking_type = 1 fallback_to_clustered_locking = 1 fallback_to_local_locking = 1 locking_dir = "/lib/init/rw" } activation { missing_stripe_filler = "/dev/ioerror" reserved_stack = 256 reserved_memory = 8192 process_priority = -18 mirror_region_size = 512 readahead = "auto" mirror_log_fault_policy = "allocate" mirror_device_fault_policy = "remove" } :~# vgscan -vvv Processing: vgscan -vvv O_DIRECT will be used Setting global/locking_type to 1 File-based locking selected. Setting global/locking_dir to /lib/init/rw Locking /lib/init/rw/P_global WB Wiping cache of LVM-capable devices /dev/block/1:0: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:1: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:10: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:11: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:12: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:13: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:14: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:15: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:2: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:3: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:4: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:5: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:6: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:7: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:8: Added to device cache /dev/block/1:9: Added to device cache /dev/block/253:0: Added to device cache /dev/block/253:1: Added to device cache /dev/block/253:2: Added to device cache /dev/block/253:3: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:0: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:1: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:16: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:17: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:18: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:19: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:2: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:21: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:22: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:3: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:5: Added to device cache /dev/block/8:6: Added to device cache /dev/block/9:0: Already in device cache /dev/block/9:1: Already in device cache /dev/block/9:2: Already in device cache /dev/bsg/0:0:0:0: Not a block device /dev/bsg/1:0:0:0: Not a block device /dev/bus/usb/001/001: Not a block device [... many more "not a block device"] /dev/core: Not a block device /dev/cpu_dma_latency: Not a block device /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895: Aliased to /dev/block/8:16 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:17 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:18 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:19 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:21 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L507895-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:22 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800: Aliased to /dev/block/8:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:5 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD160JJ_S08HJ10L526800-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:6 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-name-systemlvm-home: Aliased to /dev/block/253:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-name-systemlvm-tmp: Aliased to /dev/block/253:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-name-systemlvm-usr: Aliased to /dev/block/253:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-name-systemlvm-var: Aliased to /dev/block/253:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-LVM-rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvr25N7CRZpUMzR18NfS6zeSeAVnVT98LuU: Aliased to /dev/block/253:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-LVM-rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvr3TpFXtLjYGEwn79IdXsSCZPl8AxmqbmQ: Aliased to /dev/block/253:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-LVM-rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvrc5MJ4KolevMjt85PPBrQuRTkXbx6NvTi: Aliased to /dev/block/253:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-LVM-rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvrYXrfdg5OSYDVkNeiQeQksgCI849Z2hx8: Aliased to /dev/block/253:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/md-uuid-11e9dc6c:1da99f3f:b3088ca6:c6fe60e9: Already in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/md-uuid-601d4642:39dc80d7:96e8bbac:649924ba: Already in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/md-uuid-92ed1e4b:897361d3:070682b3:3baa4fa1: Already in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895: Aliased to /dev/block/8:16 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:17 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:18 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:19 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:21 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L507895-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:22 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800: Aliased to /dev/block/8:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:5 in device cache /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD160JJS08HJ10L526800-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:6 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0: Aliased to /dev/block/8:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:5 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:6 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0: Aliased to /dev/block/8:16 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:17 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:18 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:19 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:21 in device cache /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:0f.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:22 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/13c1262b-e06f-40ce-b088-ce410640a6dc: Aliased to /dev/block/253:3 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/379f57b0-2e03-414c-808a-f76160617336: Aliased to /dev/block/253:2 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/4fb2d6d3-bd51-48d3-95ee-8e404faf243d: Already in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/5c6728ec-82c1-49c0-93c5-f6dbd5c0d659: Aliased to /dev/block/8:5 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/a13cdfcd-2191-4185-a727-ffefaf7a382e: Aliased to /dev/block/253:1 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/e0d5893d-ff88-412f-b753-9e3e9af3242d: Aliased to /dev/block/8:21 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/e79c9da6-8533-4e55-93ec-208876671edc: Aliased to /dev/block/253:0 in device cache /dev/disk/by-uuid/f3f176f5-12f7-4af8-952a-c6ac43a6e332: Already in device cache /dev/dm-0: Aliased to /dev/block/253:0 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/dm-1: Aliased to /dev/block/253:1 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/dm-2: Aliased to /dev/block/253:2 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/dm-3: Aliased to /dev/block/253:3 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/fd: Symbolic link to directory /dev/full: Not a block device /dev/hpet: Not a block device /dev/initctl: Not a block device /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-0-event-kbd: Not a block device /dev/input/event0: Not a block device /dev/input/mice: Not a block device /dev/kmem: Not a block device /dev/kmsg: Not a block device /dev/log: Not a block device /dev/loop/0: Added to device cache /dev/MAKEDEV: Not a block device /dev/mapper/control: Not a block device /dev/mapper/systemlvm-home: Aliased to /dev/dm-2 in device cache /dev/mapper/systemlvm-tmp: Aliased to /dev/dm-3 in device cache /dev/mapper/systemlvm-usr: Aliased to /dev/dm-1 in device cache /dev/mapper/systemlvm-var: Aliased to /dev/dm-0 in device cache /dev/md0: Already in device cache /dev/md1: Already in device cache /dev/md2: Already in device cache /dev/mem: Not a block device /dev/net/tun: Not a block device /dev/network_latency: Not a block device /dev/network_throughput: Not a block device /dev/null: Not a block device /dev/port: Not a block device /dev/ppp: Not a block device /dev/psaux: Not a block device /dev/ptmx: Not a block device /dev/pts/0: Not a block device /dev/ram0: Aliased to /dev/block/1:0 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram1: Aliased to /dev/block/1:1 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram10: Aliased to /dev/block/1:10 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram11: Aliased to /dev/block/1:11 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram12: Aliased to /dev/block/1:12 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram13: Aliased to /dev/block/1:13 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram14: Aliased to /dev/block/1:14 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram15: Aliased to /dev/block/1:15 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram2: Aliased to /dev/block/1:2 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram3: Aliased to /dev/block/1:3 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram4: Aliased to /dev/block/1:4 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram5: Aliased to /dev/block/1:5 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram6: Aliased to /dev/block/1:6 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram7: Aliased to /dev/block/1:7 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram8: Aliased to /dev/block/1:8 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/ram9: Aliased to /dev/block/1:9 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/random: Not a block device /dev/root: Already in device cache /dev/rtc: Not a block device /dev/rtc0: Not a block device /dev/sda: Aliased to /dev/block/8:0 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sda1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:1 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sda2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:2 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sda3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:3 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sda5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:5 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sda6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:6 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb: Aliased to /dev/block/8:16 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb1: Aliased to /dev/block/8:17 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb2: Aliased to /dev/block/8:18 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb3: Aliased to /dev/block/8:19 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb5: Aliased to /dev/block/8:21 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/sdb6: Aliased to /dev/block/8:22 in device cache (preferred name) /dev/shm/network/ifstate: Not a block device /dev/snapshot: Not a block device /dev/sndstat: stat failed: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden /dev/stderr: Not a block device /dev/stdin: Not a block device /dev/stdout: Not a block device /dev/systemlvm/home: Aliased to /dev/dm-2 in device cache /dev/systemlvm/tmp: Aliased to /dev/dm-3 in device cache /dev/systemlvm/usr: Aliased to /dev/dm-1 in device cache /dev/systemlvm/var: Aliased to /dev/dm-0 in device cache /dev/tty: Not a block device /dev/tty0: Not a block device [... many more "not a block device"] /dev/vcsa6: Not a block device /dev/xconsole: Not a block device /dev/zero: Not a block device Wiping internal VG cache lvmcache: initialised VG #orphans_lvm1 lvmcache: initialised VG #orphans_pool lvmcache: initialised VG #orphans_lvm2 Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while... Finding all volume groups /dev/ram0: Skipping (regex) /dev/loop/0: Skipping (sysfs) /dev/sda: Skipping (regex) Opened /dev/md0 RO /dev/md0: size is 192512 sectors Closed /dev/md0 /dev/md0: size is 192512 sectors Opened /dev/md0 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md0: block size is 1024 bytes Closed /dev/md0 Using /dev/md0 Opened /dev/md0 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md0: block size is 1024 bytes /dev/md0: No label detected Closed /dev/md0 /dev/dm-0: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram1: Skipping (regex) /dev/sda1: Skipping (regex) Opened /dev/md1 RO /dev/md1: size is 5863552 sectors Closed /dev/md1 /dev/md1: size is 5863552 sectors Opened /dev/md1 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md1: block size is 4096 bytes Closed /dev/md1 Using /dev/md1 Opened /dev/md1 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md1: block size is 4096 bytes /dev/md1: No label detected Closed /dev/md1 /dev/dm-1: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram2: Skipping (regex) /dev/sda2: Skipping (regex) Opened /dev/md2 RO /dev/md2: size is 303596160 sectors Closed /dev/md2 /dev/md2: size is 303596160 sectors Opened /dev/md2 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md2: block size is 4096 bytes Closed /dev/md2 Using /dev/md2 Opened /dev/md2 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md2: block size is 4096 bytes /dev/md2: lvm2 label detected lvmcache: /dev/md2: now in VG #orphans_lvm2 (#orphans_lvm2) /dev/md2: Found metadata at 39936 size 2632 (in area at 2048 size 194560) for systemlvm (rL8Oq2-dA7o-eRYe-u1or-JA7U-fnb1-kjOyvr) lvmcache: /dev/md2: now in VG systemlvm with 1 mdas lvmcache: /dev/md2: setting systemlvm VGID to rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvr lvmcache: /dev/md2: VG systemlvm: Set creation host to rescue. Closed /dev/md2 /dev/dm-2: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram3: Skipping (regex) /dev/sda3: Skipping (regex) /dev/dm-3: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram4: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram5: Skipping (regex) /dev/sda5: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram6: Skipping (regex) /dev/sda6: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram7: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram8: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram9: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram10: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram11: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram12: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram13: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram14: Skipping (regex) /dev/ram15: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb1: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb2: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb3: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb5: Skipping (regex) /dev/sdb6: Skipping (regex) Locking /lib/init/rw/V_systemlvm RB Finding volume group "systemlvm" Opened /dev/md2 RW O_DIRECT /dev/md2: block size is 4096 bytes /dev/md2: lvm2 label detected lvmcache: /dev/md2: now in VG #orphans_lvm2 (#orphans_lvm2) with 1 mdas /dev/md2: Found metadata at 39936 size 2632 (in area at 2048 size 194560) for systemlvm (rL8Oq2-dA7o-eRYe-u1or-JA7U-fnb1-kjOyvr) lvmcache: /dev/md2: now in VG systemlvm with 1 mdas lvmcache: /dev/md2: setting systemlvm VGID to rL8Oq2dA7oeRYeu1orJA7Ufnb1kjOyvr lvmcache: /dev/md2: VG systemlvm: Set creation host to rescue. Using cached label for /dev/md2 Read systemlvm metadata (19) from /dev/md2 at 39936 size 2632 /dev/md2 0: 0 16: home(0:0) /dev/md2 1: 16 24: var(40:0) /dev/md2 2: 40 40: var(0:0) /dev/md2 3: 80 40: usr(0:0) /dev/md2 4: 120 40: var(80:0) /dev/md2 5: 160 8: tmp(0:0) /dev/md2 6: 168 16: var(64:0) /dev/md2 7: 184 80: var(120:0) /dev/md2 8: 264 64: home(16:0) /dev/md2 9: 328 128: var(200:0) /dev/md2 10: 456 32: home(80:0) /dev/md2 11: 488 440: var(328:0) /dev/md2 12: 928 24: home(112:0) /dev/md2 13: 952 206: NULL(0:0) Found volume group "systemlvm" using metadata type lvm2 Read volume group systemlvm from /etc/lvm/backup/systemlvm Unlocking /lib/init/rw/V_systemlvm Closed /dev/md2 Unlocking /lib/init/rw/P_global ~# vgdisplay --- Volume group --- VG Name systemlvm System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 1 Metadata Sequence No 19 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 4 Open LV 4 Max PV 0 Cur PV 1 Act PV 1 VG Size 144,75 GB PE Size 128,00 MB Total PE 1158 Alloc PE / Size 952 / 119,00 GB Free PE / Size 206 / 25,75 GB VG UUID rL8Oq2-dA7o-eRYe-u1or-JA7U-fnb1-kjOyvr ~# pvdisplay --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/md2 VG Name systemlvm PV Size 144,77 GB / not usable 16,31 MB Allocatable yes PE Size (KByte) 131072 Total PE 1158 Free PE 206 Allocated PE 952 PV UUID ZSAzP5-iBvr-L7jy-wB8T-AiWz-0g3m-HLK66Y :~# lvdisplay --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/systemlvm/home VG Name systemlvm LV UUID YXrfdg-5OSY-DVkN-eiQe-Qksg-CI84-9Z2hx8 LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 2 LV Size 17,00 GB Current LE 136 Segments 4 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto - currently set to 256 Block device 253:2 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/systemlvm/var VG Name systemlvm LV UUID 25N7CR-ZpUM-zR18-NfS6-zeSe-AVnV-T98LuU LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 2 LV Size 96,00 GB Current LE 768 Segments 7 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto - currently set to 256 Block device 253:0 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/systemlvm/usr VG Name systemlvm LV UUID 3TpFXt-LjYG-Ewn7-9IdX-sSCZ-Pl8A-xmqbmQ LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 2 LV Size 5,00 GB Current LE 40 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto - currently set to 256 Block device 253:1 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/systemlvm/tmp VG Name systemlvm LV UUID c5MJ4K-olev-Mjt8-5PPB-rQuR-TkXb-x6NvTi LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 2 LV Size 1,00 GB Current LE 8 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto - currently set to 256 Block device 253:3

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  • How to avoid the Portlet Skin mismatch

    - by Martin Deh
    here are probably many on going debates whether to use portlets or taskflows in a WebCenter custom portal application.  Usually the main battle on which side to take in these debates are centered around which technology enables better performance.  The good news is that both of my colleagues, Maiko Rocha and George Maggessy have posted their respective views on this topic so I will not have to further the discussion.  However, if you do plan to use portlets in a WebCenter custom portal application, this post will help you not have the "portlet skin mismatch" issue.   An example of the presence of the mismatch can be view from the applications log: The skin customsharedskin.desktop specified on the requestMap will be used even though the consumer's skin's styleSheetDocumentId on the requestMap does not match the local skin's styleSheetDocument's id. This will impact performance since the consumer and producer stylesheets cannot be shared. The producer styleclasses will not be compressed to avoid conflicts. A reason the ids do not match may be the jars are not identical on the producer and the consumer. For example, one might have trinidad-skins.xml's skin-additions in a jar file on the class path that the other does not have. Notice that due to the mismatch the portlet's CSS will not be able to be compressed, which will most like impact performance in the portlet's consuming portal. The first part of the blog will define the portlet mismatch and cover some debugging tips that can help you solve the portlet mismatch issue.  Following that I will give a complete example of the creating, using and sharing a shared skin in both a portlet producer and the consumer application. Portlet Mismatch Defined  In general, when you consume/render an ADF page (or task flow) using the ADF Portlet bridge, the portlet (producer) would try to use the skin of the consumer page - this is called skin-sharing. When the producer cannot match the consumer skin, the portlet would generate its own stylesheet and reference it from its markup - this is called mismatched-skin. This can happen because: The consumer and producer use different versions of ADF Faces, or The consumer has additional skin-additions that the producer doesn't have or vice-versa, or The producer does not have the consumer skin For case (1) & (2) above, the producer still uses the consumer skin ID to render its markup. For case (3), the producer would default to using portlet skin. If there is a skin mis-match then there may be a performance hit because: The browser needs to fetch this extra stylesheet (though it should be cached unless expires caching is turned off) The generated portlet markup uses uncompressed styles resulting in a larger markup It is often not obvious when a skin mismatch occurs, unless you look for either of these indicators: The log messages in the producer log, for example: The skin blafplus-rich.desktop specified on the requestMap will not be used because the styleSheetDocument id on the requestMap does not match the local skin's styleSheetDocument's id. It could mean the jars are not identical. For example, one might have trinidad-skins.xml's skin-additions in a jar file on the class path that the other does not have. View the portlet markup inside the iframe, there should be a <link> tag to the portlet stylesheet resource like this (note the CSS is proxied through consumer's resourceproxy): <link rel=\"stylesheet\" charset=\"UTF-8\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"http:.../resourceproxy/portletId...252525252Fadf%252525252Fstyles%252525252Fcache%252525252Fblafplus-rich-portlet-d1062g-en-ltr-gecko.css... Using HTTP monitoring tool (eg, firebug, httpwatch), you can see a request is made to the portlet stylesheet resource (see URL above) There are a number of reasons for mismatched-skin. For skin to match the producer and consumer must match the following configurations: The ADF Faces version (different versions may have different style selectors) Style Compression, this is defined in the web.xml (default value is false, i.e. compression is ON) Tonal styles or themes, also defined in the web.xml via context-params The same skin additions (jars with skin) are available for both producer and consumer.  Skin additions are defined in the trinidad-skins.xml, using the <skin-addition> tags. These are then aggregated from all the jar files in the classpath. If there's any jar that exists on the producer but not the consumer, or vice veras, you get a mismatch. Debugging Tips  Ensure the style compression and tonal styles/themes match on the consumer and producer, by looking at the web.xml documents for the consumer & producer applications It is bit more involved to determine if the jars match.  However, you can enable the Trinidad logging to show which skin-addition it is processing.  To enable this feature, update the logging.xml log level of both the producer and consumer WLS to FINEST.  For example, in the case of the WebLogic server used by JDeveloper: $JDEV_USER_DIR/system<version number>/DefaultDomain/config/fmwconfig/servers/DefaultServer/logging.xml Add a new entry: <logger name="org.apache.myfaces.trinidadinternal.skin.SkinUtils" level="FINEST"/> Restart WebLogic.  Run the consumer page, you should see the following logging in both the consumer and producer log files. Any entries that don't match is the cause of the mismatch.  The following is an example of what the log will produce with this setting: [SRC_CLASS: org.apache.myfaces.trinidadinternal.skin.SkinUtils] [APP: WebCenter] [SRC_METHOD: _getMetaInfSkinsNodeList] Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/announcement-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/calendar-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/custComps-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/forum-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/page-service-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/peopleconnections-kudos-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/peopleconnections-wall-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/portlet-client-adf-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/rtc-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/serviceframework-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/smarttag-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.skin/in1ar8/APP-INF/lib/spaces-service-skins.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/oracle.webcenter.composer/3yo7j/WEB-INF/lib/custComps-skin.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/adf.oracle.domain.webapp/q433f9/WEB-INF/lib/adf-richclient-impl-11.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/adf.oracle.domain.webapp/q433f9/WEB-INF/lib/dvt-faces.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml Processing skin URL:zip:/tmp/_WL_user/adf.oracle.domain.webapp/q433f9/WEB-INF/lib/dvt-trinidad.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml   The Complete Example The first step is to create the shared library.  The WebCenter documentation covering this is located here in section 15.7.  In addition, our ADF guru Frank Nimphius also covers this in hes blog.  Here are my steps (in JDeveloper) to create the skin that will be used as the shared library for both the portlet producer and consumer. Create a new Generic Application Give application name (i.e. MySharedSkin) Give a project name (i.e. MySkinProject) Leave Project Technologies blank (none selected), and click Finish Create the trinidad-skins.xml Right-click on the MySkinProject node in the Application Navigator and select "New" In the New Galley, click on "General", select "File" from the Items, and click OK In the Create File dialog, name the file trinidad-skins.xml, and (IMPORTANT) give the directory path to MySkinProject\src\META-INF In the trinidad-skins.xml, complete the skin entry.  for example: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?> <skins xmlns="http://myfaces.apache.org/trinidad/skin">   <skin>     <id>mysharedskin.desktop</id>     <family>mysharedskin</family>     <extends>fusionFx-v1.desktop</extends>     <style-sheet-name>css/mysharedskin.css</style-sheet-name>   </skin> </skins> Create CSS file In the Application Navigator, right click on the META-INF folder (where the trinidad-skins.xml is located), and select "New" In the New Gallery, select Web-Tier-> HTML, CSS File from the the Items and click OK In the Create Cascading Style Sheet dialog, give the name (i.e. mysharedskin.css) Ensure that the Directory path is the under the META-INF (i.e. MySkinProject\src\META-INF\css) Once the new CSS opens in the editor, add in a style selector.  For example, this selector will style the background of a particular panelGroupLayout: af|panelGroupLayout.customPGL{     background-color:Fuchsia; } Create the MANIFEST.MF (used for deployment JAR) In the Application Navigator, right click on the META-INF folder (where the trinidad-skins.xml is located), and select "New" In the New Galley, click on "General", select "File" from the Items, and click OK In the Create File dialog, name the file MANIFEST.MF, and (IMPORTANT) ensure that the directory path is to MySkinProject\src\META-INF Complete the MANIFEST.MF, where the extension name is the shared library name Manifest-Version: 1.1 Created-By: Martin Deh Implementation-Title: mysharedskin Extension-Name: mysharedskin.lib.def Specification-Version: 1.0.1 Implementation-Version: 1.0.1 Implementation-Vendor: MartinDeh Create new Deployment Profile Right click on the MySkinProject node, and select New From the New Gallery, select General->Deployment Profiles, Shared Library JAR File from Items, and click OK In the Create Deployment Profile dialog, give name (i.e.mysharedskinlib) and click OK In the Edit JAR Deployment dialog, un-check Include Manifest File option  Select Project Output->Contributors, and check Project Source Path Select Project Output->Filters, ensure that all items under the META-INF folder are selected Click OK to exit the Project Properties dialog Deploy the shared lib to WebLogic (start server before steps) Right click on MySkin Project and select Deploy For this example, I will deploy to JDeverloper WLS In the Deploy dialog, select Deploy to Weblogic Application Server and click Next Choose IntegratedWebLogicServer and click Next Select Deploy to selected instances in the domain radio, select Default Server (note: server must be already started), and ensure Deploy as a shared Library radio is selected Click Finish Open the WebLogic console to see the deployed shared library The following are the steps to create a simple test Portlet Create a new WebCenter Portal - Portlet Producer Application In the Create Portlet Producer dialog, select default settings and click Finish Right click on the Portlets node and select New IIn the New Gallery, select Web-Tier->Portlets, Standards-based Java Portlet (JSR 286) and click OK In the General Portlet information dialog, give portlet name (i.e. MyPortlet) and click Next 2 times, stopping at Step 3 In the Content Types, select the "view" node, in the Implementation Method, select the Generate ADF-Faces JSPX radio and click Finish Once the portlet code is generated, open the view.jspx in the source editor Based on the simple CSS entry, which sets the background color of a panelGroupLayout, replace the <af:form/> tag with the example code <af:form>         <af:panelGroupLayout id="pgl1" styleClass="customPGL">           <af:outputText value="background from shared lib skin" id="ot1"/>         </af:panelGroupLayout>  </af:form> Since this portlet is to use the shared library skin, in the generated trinidad-config.xml, remove both the skin-family tag and the skin-version tag In the Application Resources view, under Descriptors->META-INF, double-click to open the weblogic-application.xml Add a library reference to the shared skin library (note: the library-name must match the extension-name declared in the MANIFEST.MF):  <library-ref>     <library-name>mysharedskin.lib.def</library-name>  </library-ref> Notice that a reference to oracle.webcenter.skin exists.  This is important if this portlet is going to be consumed by a WebCenter Portal application.  If this tag is not present, the portlet skin mismatch will happen.  Configure the portlet for deployment Create Portlet deployment WAR Right click on the Portlets node and select New In the New Gallery, select Deployment Profiles, WAR file from Items and click OK In the Create Deployment Profile dialog, give name (i.e. myportletwar), click OK Keep all of the defaults, however, remember the Context Root entry (i.e. MyPortlet4SharedLib-Portlets-context-root, this will be needed to obtain the producer WSDL URL) Click OK, then OK again to exit from the Properties dialog Since the weblogic-application.xml has to be included in the deployment, the portlet must be deployed as a WAR, within an EAR In the Application dropdown, select Deploy->New Deployment Profile... By default EAR File has been selected, click OK Give Deployment Profile (EAR) a name (i.e. MyPortletProducer) and click OK In the Properties dialog, select Application Assembly and ensure that the myportletwar is checked Keep all of the other defaults and click OK For this demo, un-check the Auto Generate ..., and all of the Security Deployment Options, click OK Save All In the Application dropdown, select Deploy->MyPortletProducer In the Deployment Action, select Deploy to Application Server, click Next Choose IntegratedWebLogicServer and click Next Select Deploy to selected instances in the domain radio, select Default Server (note: server must be already started), and ensure Deploy as a standalone Application radio is selected The select deployment type (identifying the deployment as a JSR 286 portlet) dialog appears.  Keep default radio "Yes" selection and click OK Open the WebLogic console to see the deployed Portlet The last step is to create the test portlet consuming application.  This will be done using the OOTB WebCenter Portal - Framework Application.  Create the Portlet Producer Connection In the JDeveloper Deployment log, copy the URL of the portlet deployment (i.e. http://localhost:7101/MyPortlet4SharedLib-Portlets-context-root Open a browser and paste in the URL.  The Portlet information page should appear.  Click on the WSRP v2 WSDL link Copy the URL from the browser (i.e. http://localhost:7101/MyPortlet4SharedLib-Portlets-context-root/portlets/wsrp2?WSDL) In the Application Resources view, right click on the Connections folder and select New Connection->WSRP Connection Give the producer a name or accept the default, click Next Enter (paste in) the WSDL URL, click Next If connection to Portlet is succesful, Step 3 (Specify Additional ...) should appear.  Accept defaults and click Finish Add the portlet to a test page Open the home.jspx.  Note in the visual editor, the orange dashed border, which identifies the panelCustomizable tag. From the Application Resources. select the MyPortlet portlet node, and drag and drop the node into the panelCustomizable section.  A Confirm Portlet Type dialog appears, keep default ADF Rich Portlet and click OK Configure the portlet to use the shared skin library Open the weblogic-application.xml and add the library-ref entry (mysharedskin.lib.def) for the shared skin library.  See create portlet example above for the steps Since by default, the custom portal using a managed bean to (dynamically) determine the skin family, the default trinidad-config.xml will need to be altered Open the trinidad-config.xml in the editor and replace the EL (preferenceBean) for the skin-family tag, with mysharedskin (this is the skin-family named defined in the trinidad-skins.xml) Remove the skin-version tag Right click on the index.html to test the application   Notice that the JDeveloper log view does not have any reporting of a skin mismatch.  In addition, since I have configured the extra logging outlined in debugging section above, I can see the processed skin jar in both the producer and consumer logs: <SkinUtils> <_getMetaInfSkinsNodeList> Processing skin URL:zip:/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/upload/mysharedskin.lib.def/[email protected]/app/mysharedskinlib.jar!/META-INF/trinidad-skins.xml 

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  • Toorcon14

    - by danx
    Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

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  • Passing multiple POST parameters to Web API Controller Methods

    - by Rick Strahl
    ASP.NET Web API introduces a new API for creating REST APIs and making AJAX callbacks to the server. This new API provides a host of new great functionality that unifies many of the features of many of the various AJAX/REST APIs that Microsoft created before it - ASP.NET AJAX, WCF REST specifically - and combines them into a whole more consistent API. Web API addresses many of the concerns that developers had with these older APIs, namely that it was very difficult to build consistent REST style resource APIs easily. While Web API provides many new features and makes many scenarios much easier, a lot of the focus has been on making it easier to build REST compliant APIs that are focused on resource based solutions and HTTP verbs. But  RPC style calls that are common with AJAX callbacks in Web applications, have gotten a lot less focus and there are a few scenarios that are not that obvious, especially if you're expecting Web API to provide functionality similar to ASP.NET AJAX style AJAX callbacks. RPC vs. 'Proper' REST RPC style HTTP calls mimic calling a method with parameters and returning a result. Rather than mapping explicit server side resources or 'nouns' RPC calls tend simply map a server side operation, passing in parameters and receiving a typed result where parameters and result values are marshaled over HTTP. Typically RPC calls - like SOAP calls - tend to always be POST operations rather than following HTTP conventions and using the GET/POST/PUT/DELETE etc. verbs to implicitly determine what operation needs to be fired. RPC might not be considered 'cool' anymore, but for typical private AJAX backend operations of a Web site I'd wager that a large percentage of use cases of Web API will fall towards RPC style calls rather than 'proper' REST style APIs. Web applications that have needs for things like live validation against data, filling data based on user inputs, handling small UI updates often don't lend themselves very well to limited HTTP verb usage. It might not be what the cool kids do, but I don't see RPC calls getting replaced by proper REST APIs any time soon.  Proper REST has its place - for 'real' API scenarios that manage and publish/share resources, but for more transactional operations RPC seems a better choice and much easier to implement than trying to shoehorn a boatload of endpoint methods into a few HTTP verbs. In any case Web API does a good job of providing both RPC abstraction as well as the HTTP Verb/REST abstraction. RPC works well out of the box, but there are some differences especially if you're coming from ASP.NET AJAX service or WCF Rest when it comes to multiple parameters. Action Routing for RPC Style Calls If you've looked at Web API demos you've probably seen a bunch of examples of how to create HTTP Verb based routing endpoints. Verb based routing essentially maps a controller and then uses HTTP verbs to map the methods that are called in response to HTTP requests. This works great for resource APIs but doesn't work so well when you have many operational methods in a single controller. HTTP Verb routing is limited to the few HTTP verbs available (plus separate method signatures) and - worse than that - you can't easily extend the controller with custom routes or action routing beyond that. Thankfully Web API also supports Action based routing which allows you create RPC style endpoints fairly easily:RouteTable.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "AlbumRpcApiAction", routeTemplate: "albums/{action}/{title}", defaults: new { title = RouteParameter.Optional, controller = "AlbumApi", action = "GetAblums" } ); This uses traditional MVC style {action} method routing which is different from the HTTP verb based routing you might have read a bunch about in conjunction with Web API. Action based routing like above lets you specify an end point method in a Web API controller either via the {action} parameter in the route string or via a default value for custom routes. Using routing you can pass multiple parameters either on the route itself or pass parameters on the query string, via ModelBinding or content value binding. For most common scenarios this actually works very well. As long as you are passing either a single complex type via a POST operation, or multiple simple types via query string or POST buffer, there's no issue. But if you need to pass multiple parameters as was easily done with WCF REST or ASP.NET AJAX things are not so obvious. Web API has no issue allowing for single parameter like this:[HttpPost] public string PostAlbum(Album album) { return String.Format("{0} {1:d}", album.AlbumName, album.Entered); } There are actually two ways to call this endpoint: albums/PostAlbum Using the Model Binder with plain POST values In this mechanism you're sending plain urlencoded POST values to the server which the ModelBinder then maps the parameter. Each property value is matched to each matching POST value. This works similar to the way that MVC's  ModelBinder works. Here's how you can POST using the ModelBinder and jQuery:$.ajax( { url: "albums/PostAlbum", type: "POST", data: { AlbumName: "Dirty Deeds", Entered: "5/1/2012" }, success: function (result) { alert(result); }, error: function (xhr, status, p3, p4) { var err = "Error " + " " + status + " " + p3; if (xhr.responseText && xhr.responseText[0] == "{") err = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText).message; alert(err); } }); Here's what the POST data looks like for this request: The model binder and it's straight form based POST mechanism is great for posting data directly from HTML pages to model objects. It avoids having to do manual conversions for many operations and is a great boon for AJAX callback requests. Using Web API JSON Formatter The other option is to post data using a JSON string. The process for this is similar except that you create a JavaScript object and serialize it to JSON first.album = { AlbumName: "PowerAge", Entered: new Date(1977,0,1) } $.ajax( { url: "albums/PostAlbum", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify(album), success: function (result) { alert(result); } }); Here the data is sent using a JSON object rather than form data and the data is JSON encoded over the wire. The trace reveals that the data is sent using plain JSON (Source above), which is a little more efficient since there's no UrlEncoding that occurs. BTW, notice that WebAPI automatically deals with the date. I provided the date as a plain string, rather than a JavaScript date value and the Formatter and ModelBinder both automatically map the date propertly to the Entered DateTime property of the Album object. Passing multiple Parameters to a Web API Controller Single parameters work fine in either of these RPC scenarios and that's to be expected. ModelBinding always works against a single object because it maps a model. But what happens when you want to pass multiple parameters? Consider an API Controller method that has a signature like the following:[HttpPost] public string PostAlbum(Album album, string userToken) Here I'm asking to pass two objects to an RPC method. Is that possible? This used to be fairly straight forward either with WCF REST and ASP.NET AJAX ASMX services, but as far as I can tell this is not directly possible using a POST operation with WebAPI. There a few workarounds that you can use to make this work: Use both POST *and* QueryString Parameters in Conjunction If you have both complex and simple parameters, you can pass simple parameters on the query string. The above would actually work with: /album/PostAlbum?userToken=sekkritt but that's not always possible. In this example it might not be a good idea to pass a user token on the query string though. It also won't work if you need to pass multiple complex objects, since query string values do not support complex type mapping. They only work with simple types. Use a single Object that wraps the two Parameters If you go by service based architecture guidelines every service method should always pass and return a single value only. The input should wrap potentially multiple input parameters and the output should convey status as well as provide the result value. You typically have a xxxRequest and a xxxResponse class that wraps the inputs and outputs. Here's what this method might look like:public PostAlbumResponse PostAlbum(PostAlbumRequest request) { var album = request.Album; var userToken = request.UserToken; return new PostAlbumResponse() { IsSuccess = true, Result = String.Format("{0} {1:d} {2}", album.AlbumName, album.Entered,userToken) }; } with these support types:public class PostAlbumRequest { public Album Album { get; set; } public User User { get; set; } public string UserToken { get; set; } } public class PostAlbumResponse { public string Result { get; set; } public bool IsSuccess { get; set; } public string ErrorMessage { get; set; } }   To call this method you now have to assemble these objects on the client and send it up as JSON:var album = { AlbumName: "PowerAge", Entered: "1/1/1977" } var user = { Name: "Rick" } var userToken = "sekkritt"; $.ajax( { url: "samples/PostAlbum", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify({ Album: album, User: user, UserToken: userToken }), success: function (result) { alert(result.Result); } }); I assemble the individual types first and then combine them in the data: property of the $.ajax() call into the actual object passed to the server, that mimics the structure of PostAlbumRequest server class that has Album, User and UserToken properties. This works well enough but it gets tedious if you have to create Request and Response types for each method signature. If you have common parameters that are always passed (like you always pass an album or usertoken) you might be able to abstract this to use a single object that gets reused for all methods, but this gets confusing too: Overload a single 'parameter' too much and it becomes a nightmare to decipher what your method actual can use. Use JObject to parse multiple Property Values out of an Object If you recall, ASP.NET AJAX and WCF REST used a 'wrapper' object to make default AJAX calls. Rather than directly calling a service you always passed an object which contained properties for each parameter: { parm1: Value, parm2: Value2 } WCF REST/ASP.NET AJAX would then parse this top level property values and map them to the parameters of the endpoint method. This automatic type wrapping functionality is no longer available directly in Web API, but since Web API now uses JSON.NET for it's JSON serializer you can actually simulate that behavior with a little extra code. You can use the JObject class to receive a dynamic JSON result and then using the dynamic cast of JObject to walk through the child objects and even parse them into strongly typed objects. Here's how to do this on the API Controller end:[HttpPost] public string PostAlbum(JObject jsonData) { dynamic json = jsonData; JObject jalbum = json.Album; JObject juser = json.User; string token = json.UserToken; var album = jalbum.ToObject<Album>(); var user = juser.ToObject<User>(); return String.Format("{0} {1} {2}", album.AlbumName, user.Name, token); } This is clearly not as nice as having the parameters passed directly, but it works to allow you to pass multiple parameters and access them using Web API. JObject is JSON.NET's generic object container which sports a nice dynamic interface that allows you to walk through the object's properties using standard 'dot' object syntax. All you have to do is cast the object to dynamic to get access to the property interface of the JSON type. Additionally JObject also allows you to parse JObject instances into strongly typed objects, which enables us here to retrieve the two objects passed as parameters from this jquery code:var album = { AlbumName: "PowerAge", Entered: "1/1/1977" } var user = { Name: "Rick" } var userToken = "sekkritt"; $.ajax( { url: "samples/PostAlbum", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify({ Album: album, User: user, UserToken: userToken }), success: function (result) { alert(result); } }); Summary ASP.NET Web API brings many new features and many advantages over the older Microsoft AJAX and REST APIs, but realize that some things like passing multiple strongly typed object parameters will work a bit differently. It's not insurmountable, but just knowing what options are available to simulate this behavior is good to know. Now let me say here that it's probably not a good practice to pass a bunch of parameters to an API call. Ideally APIs should be closely factored to accept single parameters or a single content parameter at least along with some identifier parameters that can be passed on the querystring. But saying that doesn't mean that occasionally you don't run into a situation where you have the need to pass several objects to the server and all three of the options I mentioned might have merit in different situations. For now I'm sure the question of how to pass multiple parameters will come up quite a bit from people migrating WCF REST or ASP.NET AJAX code to Web API. At least there are options available to make it work.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

    - by Rick Strahl
    High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words

    - by raul.goycoolea
    p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1 { margin-top: 0.33in; margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(54, 95, 145); page-break-inside: avoid; }h1.western { font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 14pt; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 14pt; }h1.ctl { font-size: 14pt; } Getting Started with Business Transformations A well-known proverb states that "A picture is worth a thousand words." In relation to Business Process Management (BPM), a credible analyst might have a few questions. What if the picture was taken from some particular angle, like directly overhead? What if it was taken from only an inch away or a mile away? What if the photographer did not focus the camera correctly? Does the value of the picture depend on who is looking at it? Enterprise Process Maps are analogous in this sense of relative value. Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment, from the biggest picture representations down to the lowest level required or desired for the particular project type, scope and objectives. The Enterprise Process Map serves as an entry point for the process architecture and is defined: the single highest level of process mapping for an organization. It is constructed and evaluated during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. (see Figure 1) Fig. 1: Business Process Management Lifecycle Many organizations view such maps as visual abstractions, constructed for the single purpose of process categorization. This, in turn, results in a lesser focus on the inherent intricacies of the Enterprise Process view, which are explored in the course of this paper. With the main focus of a large scale process documentation effort usually underlying an ERP or other system implementation, it is common for the work to be driven by the desire to "get to the details," and to the type of modeling that will derive near-term tangible results. For instance, a project in American Pharmaceutical Company X is driven by the Director of IT. With 120+ systems in place, and a lack of standardized processes across the United States, he and the VP of IT have decided to embark on a long-term ERP implementation. At the forethought of both are questions, such as: How does my application architecture map to the business? What are each application's functionalities, and where do the business processes utilize them? Where can we retire legacy systems? Well-developed BPM methodologies prescribe numerous model types to capture such information and allow for thorough analysis in these areas. Process to application maps, Event Driven Process Chains, etc. provide this level of detail and facilitate the completion of such project-specific questions. These models and such analysis are appropriately carried out at a relatively low level of process detail. (see figure 2) Fig. 2: The Level Concept, Generic Process HierarchySome of the questions remaining are ones of documentation longevity, the continuation of BPM practice in the organization, process governance and ownership, process transparency and clarity in business process objectives and strategy. The Level Concept in Brief Figure 2 shows a generic, four-level process hierarchy depicting the breakdown of a "Process Area" into progressively more detailed process classifications. The number of levels and the names of these levels are flexible, and can be fit to the standards of the organization's chosen terminology or any other chosen reference model that makes logical sense for both short and long term process description. It is at Level 1 (in this case the Process Area level), that the Enterprise Process Map is created. This map and its contained objects become the foundation for a top-down approach to subsequent mapping, object relationship development, and analysis of the organization's processes and its supporting infrastructure. Additionally, this picture serves as a communication device, at an executive level, describing the design of the business in its service to a customer. It seems, then, imperative that the process development effort, and this map, start off on the right foot. Figuring out just what that right foot is, however, is critical and trend-setting in an evolving organization. Key Considerations Enterprise Process Maps are usually not as living and breathing as other process maps. Just as it would be an extremely difficult task to change the foundation of the Sears Tower or a city plan for the entire city of Chicago, the Enterprise Process view of an organization usually remains unchanged once developed (unless, of course, an organization is at a stage where it is capable of true, high-level process innovation). Regardless, the Enterprise Process map is a key first step, and one that must be taken in a precise way. What makes this groundwork solid depends on not only the materials used to construct it (process areas), but also the layout plan and knowledge base of what will be built (the entire process architecture). It seems reasonable that care and consideration are required to create this critical high level map... but what are the important factors? Does the process modeler need to worry about how many process areas there are? About who is looking at it? Should he only use the color pink because it's his boss' favorite color? Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, these are all valid considerations that may just require a bit of structure. Below are Three Key Factors to consider when building an Enterprise Process Map: Company Strategic Focus Process Categorization: Customer is Core End-to-end versus Functional Processes Company Strategic Focus As mentioned above, the Enterprise Process Map is created during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. From Oracle Business Process Management methodology for business transformation, it is apparent that business processes exist for the purpose of achieving the strategic objectives of an organization. In a prescribed, top-down approach to process development, it must be ensured that each process fulfills its objectives, and in an aggregated manner, drives fulfillment of the strategic objectives of the company, whether for particular business segments or in a broader sense. This is a crucial point, as the strategic messages of the company must therefore resound in its process maps, in particular one that spans the processes of the complete business: the Enterprise Process Map. One simple example from Company X is shown below (see figure 3). Fig. 3: Company X Enterprise Process Map In reviewing Company X's Enterprise Process Map, one can immediately begin to understand the general strategic mindset of the organization. It shows that Company X is focused on its customers, defining 10 of its process areas belonging to customer-focused categories. Additionally, the organization views these end-customer-oriented process areas as part of customer-fulfilling value chains, while support process areas do not provide as much contiguous value. However, by including both support and strategic process categorizations, it becomes apparent that all processes are considered vital to the success of the customer-oriented focus processes. Below is an example from Company Y (see figure 4). Fig. 4: Company Y Enterprise Process Map Company Y, although also a customer-oriented company, sends a differently focused message with its depiction of the Enterprise Process Map. Along the top of the map is the company's product tree, overarching the process areas, which when executed deliver the products themselves. This indicates one strategic objective of excellence in product quality. Additionally, the view represents a less linear value chain, with strong overlaps of the various process areas. Marketing and quality management are seen as a key support processes, as they span the process lifecycle. Often, companies may incorporate graphics, logos and symbols representing customers and suppliers, and other objects to truly send the strategic message to the business. Other times, Enterprise Process Maps may show high level of responsibility to organizational units, or the application types that support the process areas. It is possible that hundreds of formats and focuses can be applied to an Enterprise Process Map. What is of vital importance, however, is which formats and focuses are chosen to truly represent the direction of the company, and serve as a driver for focusing the business on the strategic objectives set forth in that right. Process Categorization: Customer is Core In the previous two examples, processes were grouped using differing categories and techniques. Company X showed one support and three customer process categorizations using encompassing chevron objects; Customer Y achieved a less distinct categorization using a gradual color scheme. Either way, and in general, modeling of the process areas becomes even more valuable and easily understood within the context of business categorization, be it strategic or otherwise. But how one categorizes their processes is typically more complex than simply choosing object shapes and colors. Previously, it was stated that the ideal is a prescribed top-down approach to developing processes, to make certain linkages all the way back up to corporate strategy. But what about external influences? What forces push and pull corporate strategy? Industry maturity, product lifecycle, market profitability, competition, etc. can all drive the critical success factors of a particular business segment, or the company as a whole, in addition to previous corporate strategy. This may seem to be turning into a discussion of theory, but that is far from the case. In fact, in years of recent study and evolution of the way businesses operate, cross-industry and across the globe, one invariable has surfaced with such strength to make it undeniable in the game plan of any strategy fit for survival. That constant is the customer. Many of a company's critical success factors, in any business segment, relate to the customer: customer retention, satisfaction, loyalty, etc. Businesses serve customers, and so do a business's processes, mapped or unmapped. The most effective way to categorize processes is in a manner that visualizes convergence to what is core for a company. It is the value chain, beginning with the customer in mind, and ending with the fulfillment of that customer, that becomes the core or the centerpiece of the Enterprise Process Map. (See figure 5) Fig. 5: Company Z Enterprise Process Map Company Z has what may be viewed as several different perspectives or "cuts" baked into their Enterprise Process Map. It has divided its processes into three main categories (top, middle, and bottom) of Management Processes, the Core Value Chain and Supporting Processes. The Core category begins with Corporate Marketing (which contains the activities of beginning to engage customers) and ends with Customer Service Management. Within the value chain, this company has divided into the focus areas of their two primary business lines, Foods and Beverages. Does this mean that areas, such as Strategy, Information Management or Project Management are not as important as those in the Core category? No! In some cases, though, depending on the organization's understanding of high-level BPM concepts, use of category names, such as "Core," "Management" or "Support," can be a touchy subject. What is important to understand, is that no matter the nomenclature chosen, the Core processes are those that drive directly to customer value, Support processes are those which make the Core processes possible to execute, and Management Processes are those which steer and influence the Core. Some common terms for these three basic categorizations are Core, Customer Fulfillment, Customer Relationship Management, Governing, Controlling, Enabling, Support, etc. End-to-end versus Functional Processes Every high and low level of process: function, task, activity, process/work step (whatever an organization calls it), should add value to the flow of business in an organization. Suppose that within the process "Deliver package," there is a documented task titled "Stop for ice cream." It doesn't take a process expert to deduce the room for improvement. Though stopping for ice cream may create gain for the one person performing it, it likely benefits neither the organization nor, more importantly, the customer. In most cases, "Stop for ice cream" wouldn't make it past the first pass of To-Be process development. What would make the cut, however, would be a flow of tasks that, each having their own value add, build up to greater and greater levels of process objective. In this case, those tasks would combine to achieve a status of "package delivered." Figure 3 shows a simple example: Just as the package can only be delivered (outcome of the process) without first being retrieved, loaded, and the travel destination reached (outcomes of the process steps), some higher level of process "Play Practical Joke" (e.g., main process or process area) cannot be completed until a package is delivered. It seems that isolated or functionally separated processes, such as "Deliver Package" (shown in Figure 6), are necessary, but are always part of a bigger value chain. Each of these individual processes must be analyzed within the context of that value chain in order to ensure successful end-to-end process performance. For example, this company's "Create Joke Package" process could be operating flawlessly and efficiently, but if a joke is never developed, it cannot be created, so the end-to-end process breaks. Fig. 6: End to End Process Construction That being recognized, it is clear that processes must be viewed as end-to-end, customer-to-customer, and in the context of company strategy. But as can also be seen from the previous example, these vital end-to-end processes cannot be built without the functionally oriented building blocks. Without one, the other cannot be had, or at least not in a complete and organized fashion. As it turns out, but not discussed in depth here, the process modeling effort, BPM organizational development, and comprehensive coverage cannot be fully realized without a semi-functional, process-oriented approach. Then, an Enterprise Process Map should be concerned with both views, the building blocks, and access points to the business-critical end-to-end processes, which they construct. Without the functional building blocks, all streams of work needed for any business transformation would be lost mess of process disorganization. End-to-end views are essential for utilization in optimization in context, understanding customer impacts, base-lining all project phases and aligning objectives. Including both views on an Enterprise Process Map allows management to understand the functional orientation of the company's processes, while still providing access to end-to-end processes, which are most valuable to them. (See figures 7 and 8). Fig. 7: Simplified Enterprise Process Map with end-to-end Access Point The above examples show two unique ways to achieve a successful Enterprise Process Map. The first example is a simple map that shows a high level set of process areas and a separate section with the end-to-end processes of concern for the organization. This particular map is filtered to show just one vital end-to-end process for a project-specific focus. Fig. 8: Detailed Enterprise Process Map showing connected Functional Processes The second example shows a more complex arrangement and categorization of functional processes (the names of each process area has been removed). The end-to-end perspective is achieved at this level through the connections (interfaces at lower levels) between these functional process areas. An important point to note is that the organization of these two views of the Enterprise Process Map is dependent, in large part, on the orientation of its audience, and the complexity of the landscape at the highest level. If both are not apparent, the Enterprise Process Map is missing an opportunity to serve as a holistic, high-level view. Conclusion In the world of BPM, and specifically regarding Enterprise Process Maps, a picture can be worth as many words as the thought and effort that is put into it. Enterprise Process Maps alone cannot change an organization, but they serve more purposes than initially meet the eye, and therefore must be designed in a way that enables a BPM mindset, business process understanding and business transformation efforts. Every Enterprise Process Map will and should be different when looking across organizations. Its design will be driven by company strategy, a level of customer focus, and functional versus end-to-end orientations. This high-level description of the considerations of the Enterprise Process Maps is not a prescriptive "how to" guide. However, a company attempting to create one may not have the practical BPM experience to truly explore its options or impacts to the coming work of business process transformation. The biggest takeaway is that process modeling, at all levels, is a science and an art, and art is open to interpretation. It is critical that the modeler of the highest level of process mapping be a cognoscente of the message he is delivering and the factors at hand. Without sufficient focus on the design of the Enterprise Process Map, an entire BPM effort may suffer. For additional information please check: Oracle Business Process Management.

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  • 10 Essential Tools for building ASP.NET Websites

    - by Stephen Walther
    I recently put together a simple public website created with ASP.NET for my company at Superexpert.com. I was surprised by the number of free tools that I ended up using to put together the website. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to create a list of essential tools for building ASP.NET websites. These tools work equally well with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Performance Tools After reading Steve Souders two (very excellent) books on front-end website performance High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites, I have been super sensitive to front-end website performance. According to Souders’ Performance Golden Rule: “Optimize front-end performance first, that's where 80% or more of the end-user response time is spent” You can use the tools below to reduce the size of the images, JavaScript files, and CSS files used by an ASP.NET application. 1. Sprite and Image Optimization Framework CSS sprites were first described in an article written for A List Apart entitled CSS sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. When you use sprites, you combine multiple images used by a website into a single image. Next, you use CSS trickery to display particular sub-images from the combined image in a webpage. The primary advantage of sprites is that they reduce the number of requests required to display a webpage. Requesting a single large image is faster than requesting multiple small images. In general, the more resources – images, JavaScript files, CSS files – that must be moved across the wire, the slower your website. However, most people avoid using sprites because they require a lot of work. You need to combine all of the images and write just the right CSS rules to display the sub-images. The Microsoft Sprite and Image Optimization Framework enables you to avoid all of this work. The framework combines the images for you automatically. Furthermore, the framework includes an ASP.NET Web Forms control and an ASP.NET MVC helper that makes it easy to display the sub-images. You can download the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework from CodePlex at http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/50869. The Sprite and Image Optimization Framework was written by Morgan McClean who worked in the office next to mine at Microsoft. Morgan was a scary smart Intern from Canada and we discussed the Framework while he was building it (I was really excited to learn that he was working on it). Morgan added some great advanced features to this framework. For example, the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework supports something called image inlining. When you use image inlining, the actual image is stored in the CSS file. Here’s an example of what image inlining looks like: .Home_StephenWalther_small-jpg { width:75px; height:100px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEsAAABkCAIAAABB1lpeAAAAB GdBTUEAALGOfPtRkwAAACBjSFJNAACHDwAAjA8AAP1SAACBQAAAfXkAAOmLAAA85QAAGcxzPIV3AAAKL s+zNfREAAAAASUVORK5CYII=) no-repeat 0% 0%; } The actual image (in this case a picture of me that is displayed on the home page of the Superexpert.com website) is stored in the CSS file. If you visit the Superexpert.com website then very few separate images are downloaded. For example, all of the images with a red border in the screenshot below take advantage of CSS sprites: Unfortunately, there are some significant Gotchas that you need to be aware of when using the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework. There are workarounds for these Gotchas. I plan to write about these Gotchas and workarounds in a future blog entry. 2. Microsoft Ajax Minifier Whenever possible you should combine, minify, compress, and cache with a far future header all of your JavaScript and CSS files. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier makes it easy to minify JavaScript and CSS files. Don’t confuse minification and compression. You need to do both. According to Souders, you can reduce the size of a JavaScript file by an additional 20% (on average) by minifying a JavaScript file after you compress the file. When you minify a JavaScript or CSS file, you use various tricks to reduce the size of the file before you compress the file. For example, you can minify a JavaScript file by replacing long JavaScript variables names with short variables names and removing unnecessary white space and comments. You can minify a CSS file by doing such things as replacing long color names such as #ffffff with shorter equivalents such as #fff. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier was created by Microsoft employee Ron Logan. Internally, this tool was being used by several large Microsoft websites. We also used the tool heavily on the ASP.NET team. I convinced Ron to publish the tool on CodePlex so that everyone in the world could take advantage of it. You can download the tool from the ASP.NET Ajax website and read documentation for the tool here. I created the installer for the Microsoft Ajax Minifier. When creating the installer, I also created a Visual Studio build task to make it easy to minify all of your JavaScript and CSS files whenever you do a build within Visual Studio automatically. Read the Ajax Minifier Quick Start to learn how to configure the build task. 3. ySlow The ySlow tool is a free add-on for Firefox created by Yahoo that enables you to test the front-end of your website. For example, here are the current test results for the Superexpert.com website: The Superexpert.com website has an overall score of B (not perfect but not bad). The ySlow tool is not perfect. For example, the Superexpert.com website received a failing grade of F for not using a Content Delivery Network even though the website using the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network for JavaScript files such as jQuery. Uptime After publishing a website live to the world, you want to ensure that the website does not encounter any issues and that it stays live. I use the following tools to monitor the Superexpert.com website now that it is live. 4. ELMAH ELMAH stands for Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET. ELMAH enables you to record any errors that happen at your website so you can review them in the future. You can download ELMAH for free from the ELMAH project website. ELMAH works great with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. You can configure ELMAH to store errors in a number of different stores including XML files, the Event Log, an Access database, a SQL database, an Oracle database, or in computer RAM. You also can configure ELMAH to email error messages to you when they happen. By default, you can access ELMAH by requesting the elmah.axd page from a website with ELMAH installed. Here’s what the elmah page looks like from the Superexpert.com website (this page is password-protected because secret information can be revealed in an error message): If you click on a particular error message, you can view the original Yellow Screen ASP.NET error message (even when the error message was never displayed to the actual user). I installed ELMAH by taking advantage of the new package manager for ASP.NET named NuGet (originally named NuPack). You can read the details about NuGet in the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie. You can download NuGet from CodePlex. 5. Pingdom I use Pingdom to verify that the Superexpert.com website is always up. You can sign up for Pingdom by visiting Pingdom.com. You can use Pingdom to monitor a single website for free. At the Pingdom website, you configure the frequency that your website gets pinged. I verify that the Superexpert.com website is up every 5 minutes. I have the Pingdom service verify that it can retrieve the string “Contact Us” from the website homepage. If your website goes down, you can configure Pingdom so that it sends an email, Twitter, SMS, or iPhone alert. I use the Pingdom iPhone app which looks like this: 6. Host Tracker If your website does go down then you need some way of determining whether it is a problem with your local network or if your website is down for everyone. I use a website named Host-Tracker.com to check how badly a website is down. Here’s what the Host-Tracker website displays for the Superexpert.com website when the website can be successfully pinged from everywhere in the world: Notice that Host-Tracker pinged the Superexpert.com website from 68 locations including Roubaix, France and Scranton, PA. Debugging I mean debugging in the broadest possible sense. I use the following tools when building a website to verify that I have not made a mistake. 7. HTML Spell Checker Why doesn’t Visual Studio have a built-in spell checker? Don’t know – I’ve always found this mysterious. Fortunately, however, a former member of the ASP.NET team wrote a free spell checker that you can use with your ASP.NET pages. I find a spell checker indispensible. It is easy to delude yourself that you are capable of perfect spelling. I’m always super embarrassed when I actually run the spell checking tool and discover all of my spelling mistakes. The fastest way to add the HTML Spell Checker extension to Visual Studio is to select the menu option Tools, Extension Manager within Visual Studio. Click on Online Gallery and search for HTML Spell Checker: 8. IIS SEO Toolkit If people cannot find your website through Google then you should not even bother to create it. Microsoft has a great extension for IIS named the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit that you can use to identify issue with your website that would hurt its page rank. You also can use this tool to quickly create a sitemap for your website that you can submit to Google or Bing. You can even generate the sitemap for an ASP.NET MVC website. Here’s what the report overview for the Superexpert.com website looks like: Notice that the Sueprexpert.com website had plenty of violations. For example, there are 65 cases in which a page has a broken hyperlink. You can drill into these violations to identity the exact page and location where these violations occur. 9. LinqPad If your ASP.NET website accesses a database then you should be using LINQ to Entities with the Entity Framework. Using LINQ involves some magic. LINQ queries written in C# get converted into SQL queries for you. If you are not careful about how you write your LINQ queries, you could unintentionally build a really badly performing website. LinqPad is a free tool that enables you to experiment with your LINQ queries. It even works with Microsoft SQL CE 4 and Azure. You can use LinqPad to execute a LINQ to Entities query and see the results. You also can use it to see the resulting SQL that gets executed against the database: 10. .NET Reflector I use .NET Reflector daily. The .NET Reflector tool enables you to take any assembly and disassemble the assembly into C# or VB.NET code. You can use .NET Reflector to see the “Source Code” of an assembly even when you do not have the actual source code. You can download a free version of .NET Reflector from the Redgate website. I use .NET Reflector primarily to help me understand what code is doing internally. For example, I used .NET Reflector with the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework to better understand how the MVC Image helper works. Here’s part of the disassembled code from the Image helper class: Summary In this blog entry, I’ve discussed several of the tools that I used to create the Superexpert.com website. These are tools that I use to improve the performance, improve the SEO, verify the uptime, or debug the Superexpert.com website. All of the tools discussed in this blog entry are free. Furthermore, all of these tools work with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Let me know if there are any tools that you use daily when building ASP.NET websites.

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  • What Every Developer Should Know About MSI Components

    - by Alois Kraus
    Hopefully nothing. But if you have to do more than simple XCopy deployment and you need to support updates, upgrades and perhaps side by side scenarios there is no way around MSI. You can create Msi files with a Visual Studio Setup project which is severely limited or you can use the Windows Installer Toolset. I cannot talk about WIX with my German colleagues because WIX has a very special meaning. It is funny to always use the long name when I talk about deployment possibilities. Alternatively you can buy commercial tools which help you to author Msi files but I am not sure how good they are. Given enough pain with existing solutions you can also learn the MSI Apis and create your own packaging solution. If I were you I would use either a commercial visual tool when you do easy deployments or use the free Windows Installer Toolset. Once you know the WIX schema you can create well formed wix xml files easily with any editor. Then you can “compile” from the wxs files your Msi package. Recently I had the “pleasure” to get my hands dirty with C++ (again) and the MSI technology. Installation is a complex topic but after several month of digging into arcane MSI issues I can safely say that there should exist an easier way to install and update files as today. I am not alone with this statement as John Robbins (creator of the cool tool Paraffin) states: “.. It's a brittle and scary API in Windows …”. To help other people struggling with installation issues I present you the advice I (and others) found useful and what will happen if you ignore this advice. What is a MSI file? A MSI file is basically a database with tables which reference each other to control how your un/installation should work. The basic idea is that you declare via these tables what you want to install and MSI controls the how to get your stuff onto or off your machine. Your “stuff” consists usually of files, registry keys, shortcuts and environment variables. Therefore the most important tables are File, Registry, Environment and Shortcut table which define what will be un/installed. The key to master MSI is that every resource (file, registry key ,…) is associated with a MSI component. The actual payload consists of compressed files in the CAB format which can either be embedded into the MSI file or reside beside the MSI file or in a subdirectory below it. To examine MSI files you need Orca a free MSI editor provided by MS. There is also another free editor called Super Orca which does support diffs between MSI and it does not lock the MSI files. But since Orca comes with a shell extension I tend to use only Orca because it is so easy to right click on a MSI file and open it with this tool. How Do I Install It? Double click it. This does work for fresh installations as well as major upgrades. Updates need to be installed via the command line via msiexec /i <msi> REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus   This tells the installer to reinstall all already installed features (new features will NOT be installed). The reinstallmode letters do force an overwrite of the old cached package in the %WINDIR%\Installer folder. All files, shortcuts and registry keys are redeployed if they are missing or need to be replaced with a newer version. When things did go really wrong and you want to overwrite everything unconditionally use REINSTALLMODE=vamus. How To Enable MSI Logs? You can download a MSI from Microsoft which installs some registry keys to enable full MSI logging. The log files can be found in your %TEMP% folder and are called MSIxxxx.log. Alternatively you can add to your msiexec command line the option msiexec …. /l*vx <LogFileName> Personally I find it rather strange that * does not mean full logging. To really get all logs I need to add v and x which is documented in the msiexec help but I still find this behavior unintuitive. What are MSI components? The whole MSI logic is bound to the concept of MSI components. Nearly every msi table has a Component column which binds an installable resource to a component. Below are the screenshots of the FeatureComponents and Component table of an example MSI. The Feature table defines basically the feature hierarchy.  To find out what belongs to a feature you need to look at the FeatureComponents table where for each feature the components are listed which will be installed when a feature is installed. The MSI components are defined in the  Component table. This table has as first column the component name and as second column the component id which is a GUID. All resources you want to install belong to a MSI component. Therefore nearly all MSI tables have a Component_ column which contains the component name. If you look e.g. a the File table you see that every file belongs to a component which is true for all other tables which install resources. The component table is the glue between all other tables which contain the resources you want to install. So far so easy. Why is MSI then so complex? Most MSI problems arise from the fact that you did violate a MSI component rule in one or the other way. When you install a feature the reference count for all components belonging to this feature will increase by one. If your component is installed by more than one feature it will get a higher refcount. When you uninstall a feature its refcount will drop by one. Interesting things happen if the component reference count reaches zero: Then all associated resources will be deleted. That looks like a reasonable thing and it is. What it makes complex are the strange component rules you have to follow. Below are some important component rules from the Tao of the Windows Installer … Rule 16: Follow Component Rules Components are a very important part of the Installer technology. They are the means whereby the Installer manages the resources that make up your application. The SDK provides the following guidelines for creating components in your package: Never create two components that install a resource under the same name and target location. If a resource must be duplicated in multiple components, change its name or target location in each component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Two components must not have the same key path file. This is a consequence of the previous rule. The key path value points to a particular file or folder belonging to the component that the installer uses to detect the component. If two components had the same key path file, the installer would be unable to distinguish which component is installed. Two components however may share a key path folder. Do not create a version of a component that is incompatible with all previous versions of the component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Do not create components containing resources that will need to be installed into more than one directory on the user’s system. The installer installs all of the resources in a component into the same directory. It is not possible to install some resources into subdirectories. Do not include more than one COM server per component. If a component contains a COM server, this must be the key path for the component. Do not specify more than one file per component as a target for the Start menu or a Desktop shortcut. … And these rules do not even talk about component ids, update packages and upgrades which you need to understand as well. Lets suppose you install two MSIs (MSI1 and MSI2) which have the same ComponentId but different component names. Both do install the same file. What will happen when you uninstall MSI2?   Hm the file should stay there. But the component names are different. Yes and yes. But MSI uses not use the component name as key for the refcount. Instead the ComponentId column of the Component table which contains a GUID is used as identifier under which the refcount is stored. The components Comp1 and Comp2 are identical from the MSI perspective. After the installation of both MSIs the Component with the Id {100000….} has a refcount of two. After uninstallation of one MSI there is still a refcount of one which drops to zero just as expected when we uninstall the last msi. Then the file which was the same for both MSIs is deleted. You should remember that MSI keeps a refcount across MSIs for components with the same component id. MSI does manage components not the resources you did install. The resources associated with a component are then and only then deleted when the refcount of the component reaches zero.   The dependencies between features, components and resources can be described as relations. m,k are numbers >= 1, n can be 0. Inside a MSI the following relations are valid Feature    1  –> n Components Component    1 –> m Features Component      1  –>  k Resources These relations express that one feature can install several components and features can share components between them. Every (meaningful) component will install at least one resource which means that its name (primary key to stay in database speak) does occur in some other table in the Component column as value which installs some resource. Lets make it clear with an example. We want to install with the feature MainFeature some files a registry key and a shortcut. We can then create components Comp1..3 which are referenced by the resources defined in the corresponding tables.   Feature Component Registry File Shortcuts MainFeature Comp1 RegistryKey1     MainFeature Comp2   File.txt   MainFeature Comp3   File2.txt Shortcut to File2.txt   It is illegal that the same resource is part of more than one component since this would break the refcount mechanism. Lets illustrate this:            Feature ComponentId Resource Reference Count Feature1 {1000-…} File1.txt 1 Feature2 {2000-….} File1.txt 1 The installation part works well but what happens when you uninstall Feature2? Component {20000…} gets a refcount of zero where MSI deletes all resources belonging to this component. In this case File1.txt will be deleted. But Feature1 still has another component {10000…} with a refcount of one which means that the file was deleted too early. You just have ruined your installation. To fix it you then need to click on the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs to let MSI reinstall any missing registry keys, files or shortcuts. The vigilant reader might has noticed that there is more in the Component table. Beside its name and GUID it has also an installation directory, attributes and a KeyPath. The KeyPath is a reference to a file or registry key which is used to detect if the component is already installed. This becomes important when you repair or uninstall a component. To find out if the component is already installed MSI checks if the registry key or file referenced by the KeyPath property does exist. When it does not exist it assumes that it was either already uninstalled (can lead to problems during uninstall) or that it is already installed and all is fine. Why is this detail so important? Lets put all files into one component. The KeyPath should be then one of the files of your component to check if it was installed or not. When your installation becomes corrupt because a file was deleted you cannot repair it with the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs because MSI checks the component integrity via the Resource referenced by its KeyPath. As long as you did not delete the KeyPath file MSI thinks all resources with your component are installed and never executes any repair action. You get even more trouble when you try to remove files during an upgrade (you cannot remove files during an update) from your super component which contains all files. The only way out and therefore best practice is to assign for every resource you want to install an extra component. This ensures painless updatability and repairs and you have much less effort to remove specific files during an upgrade. In effect you get this best practice relation Feature 1  –> n Components Component   1  –>  1 Resources MSI Component Rules Rule 1 – One component per resource Every resource you want to install (file, registry key, value, environment value, shortcut, directory, …) must get its own component which does never change between versions as long as the install location is the same. Penalty If you add more than one resources to a component you will break the repair capability of MSI because the KeyPath is used to check if the component needs repair. MSI ComponentId Files MSI 1.0 {1000} File1-5 MSI 2.0 {2000} File2-5 You want to remove File1 in version 2.0 of your MSI. Since you want to keep the other files you create a new component and add them there. MSI will delete all files if the component refcount of {1000} drops to zero. The files you want to keep are added to the new component {2000}. Ok that does work if your upgrade does uninstall the old MSI first. This will cause the refcount of all previously installed components to reach zero which means that all files present in version 1.0 are deleted. But there is a faster way to perform your upgrade by first installing your new MSI and then remove the old one.  If you choose this upgrade path then you will loose File1-5 after your upgrade and not only File1 as intended by your new component design.   Rule 2 – Only add, never remove resources from a component If you did follow rule 1 you will not need Rule 2. You can add in a patch more resources to one component. That is ok. But you can never remove anything from it. There are tricky ways around that but I do not want to encourage bad component design. Penalty Lets assume you have 2 MSI files which install under the same component one file   MSI1 MSI2 {1000} - ComponentId {1000} – ComponentId File1.txt File2.txt   When you install and uninstall both MSIs you will end up with an installation where either File1 or File2 will be left. Why? It seems that MSI does not store the resources associated with each component in its internal database. Instead Windows will simply query the MSI that is currently uninstalled for all resources belonging to this component. Since it will find only one file and not two it will only uninstall one file. That is the main reason why you never can remove resources from a component!   Rule 3 Never Remove A Component From an Update MSI. This is the same as if you change the GUID of a component by accident for your new update package. The resulting update package will not contain all components from the previously installed package. Penalty When you remove a component from a feature MSI will set the feature state during update to Advertised and log a warning message into its log file when you did enable MSI logging. SELMGR: ComponentId '{2DCEA1BA-3E27-E222-484C-D0D66AEA4F62}' is registered to feature 'xxxxxxx, but is not present in the Component table.  Removal of components from a feature is not supported! MSI (c) (24:44) [07:53:13:436]: SELMGR: Removal of a component from a feature is not supported Advertised means that MSI treats all components of this feature as not installed. As a consequence during uninstall nothing will be removed since it is not installed! This is not only bad because uninstall does no longer work but this feature will also not get the required patches. All other features which have followed component versioning rules for update packages will be updated but the one faulty feature will not. This results in very hard to find bugs why an update was only partially successful. Things got better with Windows Installer 4.5 but you cannot rely on that nobody will use an older installer. It is a good idea to add to your update msiexec call MSIENFORCEUPGRADECOMPONENTRULES=1 which will abort the installation if you did violate this rule.

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  • xen 4.1 host priodically dropping network packets of domU

    - by Dyutiman Chakraborty
    I have xen 4.1 Host running on a ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server with ip 153.x.x.54. I have setup 2 VMs on it, namely, "dev.mydomain.com" and "web.mydomain.com" with ips 195.X.X.2 and 195.x.x.3 respectively. For network the VMs connect through xendbr0 (xen-bridge), and can accces the network properly. I can also login to the VMs with ssh with no issue. However when I ping any of the VMs, there is a high amount of periodic packet drop. If I the ping the xen host (dom0) there is no packet drop. Following is a output of "tcpdump | grep ICMP" on dOM0 while I was pinging one of the domU tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes 05:19:55.682493 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 30, length 64 05:19:56.691144 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 31, length 64 05:19:57.698776 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 32, length 64 05:19:58.706784 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 33, length 64 05:19:59.714751 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 34, length 64 05:20:00.723144 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 35, length 64 05:20:01.730349 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 36, length 64 05:20:02.739017 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 37, length 64 05:20:03.746806 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 38, length 64 05:20:06.770326 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 41, length 64 05:20:07.778801 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 42, length 64 05:20:08.786481 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 43, length 64 05:20:09.794720 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 44, length 64 05:20:10.802395 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 45, length 64 05:20:11.810770 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 46, length 64 05:20:12.818511 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 47, length 64 05:20:13.826817 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 48, length 64 05:20:14.835125 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 49, length 64 05:20:15.842138 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3460, seq 50, length 64 05:20:18.274072 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 1, length 64 05:20:19.282347 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 2, length 64 05:20:20.290746 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 3, length 64 05:20:21.297910 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 4, length 64 05:20:22.305656 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 5, length 64 05:20:23.314369 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 6, length 64 05:20:24.322055 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 7, length 64 05:20:25.329782 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 8, length 64 05:20:26.338473 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 9, length 64 05:20:27.346411 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 10, length 64 05:20:28.354175 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 11, length 64 05:20:29.361640 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 12, length 64 05:20:30.370026 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 13, length 64 05:20:31.377696 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 14, length 64 05:20:32.386151 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 15, length 64 05:20:33.394118 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 16, length 64 05:20:34.402058 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 17, length 64 05:20:35.409002 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 18, length 64 05:20:36.417692 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > web.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3461, seq 19, length 64 05:20:36.496916 IP6 fe80::3285:a9ff:feec:fc69 > ip6-allnodes: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener querymax resp delay: 1000 addr: ::, length 24 05:20:36.499112 IP6 fe80::21c:c0ff:fe6c:c091 > ff02::1:ff6c:c091: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff6c:c091, length 24 05:20:36.507041 IP6 fe80::227:eff:fe11:fa3f > ff02::1:ff00:2: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff00:2, length 24 05:20:36.523919 IP6 fe80::21c:c0ff:fe77:6257 > ff02::1:ff77:6257: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff77:6257, length 24 05:20:36.544785 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe12:ea9a > ff02::1:ff12:ea9a: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff12:ea9a, length 24 05:20:36.581740 IP6 fe80::5604:a6ff:fef1:6da7 > ff02::1:fff1:6da7: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:fff1:6da7, length 24 05:20:36.600103 IP6 fe80::8a8:8aa0:5e18:917a > ff02::1:ff18:917a: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff18:917a, length 24 05:20:36.601989 IP6 fe80::227:eff:fe11:fa3e > ff02::1:ff11:fa3e: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff11:fa3e, length 24 05:20:36.611090 IP6 fe80::dcad:56ff:fe57:3bbe > ff02::1:ff57:3bbe: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff57:3bbe, length 24 05:20:36.660521 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe02:1d31 > ff02::1:ff00:6: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff00:6, length 24 05:20:36.698871 IP6 fe80::21e:8cff:feb4:9f89 > ff02::1:ffb4:9f89: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ffb4:9f89, length 24 05:20:36.776548 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe12:ea9a > ff02::1:ff01:7: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff01:7, length 24 05:20:36.781910 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe8f:6dd > ff02::1:ff00:3: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff00:3, length 24 05:20:36.865475 IP6 fe80::21c:c0ff:fe4a:ae9f > ff02::1:ff4a:ae9f: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff4a:ae9f, length 24 05:20:36.908333 IP6 fe80::dcad:45ff:fe90:84db > ff02::1:ff90:84db: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff90:84db, length 24 05:20:36.919653 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe12:ea9a > ff02::1:ff00:7: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff00:7, length 24 05:20:36.924276 IP6 fe80::59a2:2a4a:2082:6dee > ff02::1:ff82:6dee: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff82:6dee, length 24 05:20:37.001905 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe8f:6dd > ff02::1:ff8f:6dd: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff8f:6dd, length 24 05:20:37.042403 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe95:54f2 > ff02::1:ff95:54f2: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff95:54f2, length 24 05:20:37.090992 IP6 fe80::21c:c0ff:fe77:62ac > ff02::1:ff77:62ac: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff77:62ac, length 24 05:20:37.098118 IP6 fe80::d63d:7eff:fe01:b67f > ff02::1:ff01:b67f: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff01:b67f, length 24 05:20:37.118784 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe12:ea9a > ff02::202: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::202, length 24 05:20:37.168548 IP6 fe80::54:ff:fe02:1d31 > ff02::1:ff02:1d31: HBH ICMP6, multicast listener reportmax resp delay: 0 addr: ff02::1:ff02:1d31, length 24 05:20:41.743286 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 1, length 64 05:20:41.743542 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 1, length 64 05:20:42.743859 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 2, length 64 05:20:42.743952 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 2, length 64 05:20:43.745689 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 3, length 64 05:20:43.745777 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 3, length 64 05:20:44.746706 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 4, length 64 05:20:44.746796 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 4, length 64 05:20:45.747986 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 5, length 64 05:20:45.748082 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 5, length 64 05:20:46.749834 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 6, length 64 05:20:46.749920 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 6, length 64 05:20:47.750838 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 7, length 64 05:20:47.751182 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 7, length 64 05:20:48.751909 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 8, length 64 05:20:48.751991 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 8, length 64 05:20:49.752542 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 9, length 64 05:20:49.752620 IP dev.mydomain.com > ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in: ICMP echo reply, id 3463, seq 9, length 64 05:20:50.754246 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 10, length 64 05:20:51.753856 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 11, length 64 05:20:52.752868 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 12, length 64 05:20:53.754174 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 13, length 64 05:20:54.753972 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 14, length 64 05:20:55.753814 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 15, length 64 05:20:56.753391 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 16, length 64 05:20:57.753683 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 17, length 64 05:20:58.753487 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 18, length 64 05:20:59.754013 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 19, length 64 05:21:00.753169 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 20, length 64 05:21:01.753757 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 21, length 64 05:21:02.753307 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 22, length 64 05:21:03.753021 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 23, length 64 05:21:04.753628 IP ABTS-North-Dynamic-226.X.X.122.airtelbroadband.in > dev.mydomain.com: ICMP echo request, id 3463, seq 24, length 64 ^C479 packets captured 718 packets received by filter 238 packets dropped by kernel 3 packets dropped by interface You see the ping request is not responed to initially, then for a moment it is replied back and then again no reply. I have tried everything (to the best of my knowledge) to fix this, but can't find any answer Any help will be greatly appreciated Thanks.

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  • How to find and fix performance problems in ORM powered applications

    - by FransBouma
    Once in a while we get requests about how to fix performance problems with our framework. As it comes down to following the same steps and looking into the same things every single time, I decided to write a blogpost about it instead, so more people can learn from this and solve performance problems in their O/R mapper powered applications. In some parts it's focused on LLBLGen Pro but it's also usable for other O/R mapping frameworks, as the vast majority of performance problems in O/R mapper powered applications are not specific for a certain O/R mapper framework. Too often, the developer looks at the wrong part of the application, trying to fix what isn't a problem in that part, and getting frustrated that 'things are so slow with <insert your favorite framework X here>'. I'm in the O/R mapper business for a long time now (almost 10 years, full time) and as it's a small world, we O/R mapper developers know almost all tricks to pull off by now: we all know what to do to make task ABC faster and what compromises (because there are almost always compromises) to deal with if we decide to make ABC faster that way. Some O/R mapper frameworks are faster in X, others in Y, but you can be sure the difference is mainly a result of a compromise some developers are willing to deal with and others aren't. That's why the O/R mapper frameworks on the market today are different in many ways, even though they all fetch and save entities from and to a database. I'm not suggesting there's no room for improvement in today's O/R mapper frameworks, there always is, but it's not a matter of 'the slowness of the application is caused by the O/R mapper' anymore. Perhaps query generation can be optimized a bit here, row materialization can be optimized a bit there, but it's mainly coming down to milliseconds. Still worth it if you're a framework developer, but it's not much compared to the time spend inside databases and in user code: if a complete fetch takes 40ms or 50ms (from call to entity object collection), it won't make a difference for your application as that 10ms difference won't be noticed. That's why it's very important to find the real locations of the problems so developers can fix them properly and don't get frustrated because their quest to get a fast, performing application failed. Performance tuning basics and rules Finding and fixing performance problems in any application is a strict procedure with four prescribed steps: isolate, analyze, interpret and fix, in that order. It's key that you don't skip a step nor make assumptions: these steps help you find the reason of a problem which seems to be there, and how to fix it or leave it as-is. Skipping a step, or when you assume things will be bad/slow without doing analysis will lead to the path of premature optimization and won't actually solve your problems, only create new ones. The most important rule of finding and fixing performance problems in software is that you have to understand what 'performance problem' actually means. Most developers will say "when a piece of software / code is slow, you have a performance problem". But is that actually the case? If I write a Linq query which will aggregate, group and sort 5 million rows from several tables to produce a resultset of 10 rows, it might take more than a couple of milliseconds before that resultset is ready to be consumed by other logic. If I solely look at the Linq query, the code consuming the resultset of the 10 rows and then look at the time it takes to complete the whole procedure, it will appear to me to be slow: all that time taken to produce and consume 10 rows? But if you look closer, if you analyze and interpret the situation, you'll see it does a tremendous amount of work, and in that light it might even be extremely fast. With every performance problem you encounter, always do realize that what you're trying to solve is perhaps not a technical problem at all, but a perception problem. The second most important rule you have to understand is based on the old saying "Penny wise, Pound Foolish": the part which takes e.g. 5% of the total time T for a given task isn't worth optimizing if you have another part which takes a much larger part of the total time T for that same given task. Optimizing parts which are relatively insignificant for the total time taken is not going to bring you better results overall, even if you totally optimize that part away. This is the core reason why analysis of the complete set of application parts which participate in a given task is key to being successful in solving performance problems: No analysis -> no problem -> no solution. One warning up front: hunting for performance will always include making compromises. Fast software can be made maintainable, but if you want to squeeze as much performance out of your software, you will inevitably be faced with the dilemma of compromising one or more from the group {readability, maintainability, features} for the extra performance you think you'll gain. It's then up to you to decide whether it's worth it. In almost all cases it's not. The reason for this is simple: the vast majority of performance problems can be solved by implementing the proper algorithms, the ones with proven Big O-characteristics so you know the performance you'll get plus you know the algorithm will work. The time taken by the algorithm implementing code is inevitable: you already implemented the best algorithm. You might find some optimizations on the technical level but in general these are minor. Let's look at the four steps to see how they guide us through the quest to find and fix performance problems. Isolate The first thing you need to do is to isolate the areas in your application which are assumed to be slow. For example, if your application is a web application and a given page is taking several seconds or even minutes to load, it's a good candidate to check out. It's important to start with the isolate step because it allows you to focus on a single code path per area with a clear begin and end and ignore the rest. The rest of the steps are taken per identified problematic area. Keep in mind that isolation focuses on tasks in an application, not code snippets. A task is something that's started in your application by either another task or the user, or another program, and has a beginning and an end. You can see a task as a piece of functionality offered by your application.  Analyze Once you've determined the problem areas, you have to perform analysis on the code paths of each area, to see where the performance problems occur and which areas are not the problem. This is a multi-layered effort: an application which uses an O/R mapper typically consists of multiple parts: there's likely some kind of interface (web, webservice, windows etc.), a part which controls the interface and business logic, the O/R mapper part and the RDBMS, all connected with either a network or inter-process connections provided by the OS or other means. Each of these parts, including the connectivity plumbing, eat up a part of the total time it takes to complete a task, e.g. load a webpage with all orders of a given customer X. To understand which parts participate in the task / area we're investigating and how much they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task, analysis of each participating task is essential. Start with the code you wrote which starts the task, analyze the code and track the path it follows through your application. What does the code do along the way, verify whether it's correct or not. Analyze whether you have implemented the right algorithms in your code for this particular area. Remember we're looking at one area at a time, which means we're ignoring all other code paths, just the code path of the current problematic area, from begin to end and back. Don't dig in and start optimizing at the code level just yet. We're just analyzing. If your analysis reveals big architectural stupidity, it's perhaps a good idea to rethink the architecture at this point. For the rest, we're analyzing which means we collect data about what could be wrong, for each participating part of the complete application. Reviewing the code you wrote is a good tool to get deeper understanding of what is going on for a given task but ultimately it lacks precision and overview what really happens: humans aren't good code interpreters, computers are. We therefore need to utilize tools to get deeper understanding about which parts contribute how much time to the total task, triggered by which other parts and for example how many times are they called. There are two different kind of tools which are necessary: .NET profilers and O/R mapper / RDBMS profilers. .NET profiling .NET profilers (e.g. dotTrace by JetBrains or Ants by Red Gate software) show exactly which pieces of code are called, how many times they're called, and the time it took to run that piece of code, at the method level and sometimes even at the line level. The .NET profilers are essential tools for understanding whether the time taken to complete a given task / area in your application is consumed by .NET code, where exactly in your code, the path to that code, how many times that code was called by other code and thus reveals where hotspots are located: the areas where a solution can be found. Importantly, they also reveal which areas can be left alone: remember our penny wise pound foolish saying: if a profiler reveals that a group of methods are fast, or don't contribute much to the total time taken for a given task, ignore them. Even if the code in them is perhaps complex and looks like a candidate for optimization: you can work all day on that, it won't matter.  As we're focusing on a single area of the application, it's best to start profiling right before you actually activate the task/area. Most .NET profilers support this by starting the application without starting the profiling procedure just yet. You navigate to the particular part which is slow, start profiling in the profiler, in your application you perform the actions which are considered slow, and afterwards you get a snapshot in the profiler. The snapshot contains the data collected by the profiler during the slow action, so most data is produced by code in the area to investigate. This is important, because it allows you to stay focused on a single area. O/R mapper and RDBMS profiling .NET profilers give you a good insight in the .NET side of things, but not in the RDBMS side of the application. As this article is about O/R mapper powered applications, we're also looking at databases, and the software making it possible to consume the database in your application: the O/R mapper. To understand which parts of the O/R mapper and database participate how much to the total time taken for task T, we need different tools. There are two kind of tools focusing on O/R mappers and database performance profiling: O/R mapper profilers and RDBMS profilers. For O/R mapper profilers, you can look at LLBLGen Prof by hibernating rhinos or the Linq to Sql/LLBLGen Pro profiler by Huagati. Hibernating rhinos also have profilers for other O/R mappers like NHibernate (NHProf) and Entity Framework (EFProf) and work the same as LLBLGen Prof. For RDBMS profilers, you have to look whether the RDBMS vendor has a profiler. For example for SQL Server, the profiler is shipped with SQL Server, for Oracle it's build into the RDBMS, however there are also 3rd party tools. Which tool you're using isn't really important, what's important is that you get insight in which queries are executed during the task / area we're currently focused on and how long they took. Here, the O/R mapper profilers have an advantage as they collect the time it took to execute the query from the application's perspective so they also collect the time it took to transport data across the network. This is important because a query which returns a massive resultset or a resultset with large blob/clob/ntext/image fields takes more time to get transported across the network than a small resultset and a database profiler doesn't take this into account most of the time. Another tool to use in this case, which is more low level and not all O/R mappers support it (though LLBLGen Pro and NHibernate as well do) is tracing: most O/R mappers offer some form of tracing or logging system which you can use to collect the SQL generated and executed and often also other activity behind the scenes. While tracing can produce a tremendous amount of data in some cases, it also gives insight in what's going on. Interpret After we've completed the analysis step it's time to look at the data we've collected. We've done code reviews to see whether we've done anything stupid and which parts actually take place and if the proper algorithms have been implemented. We've done .NET profiling to see which parts are choke points and how much time they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task we're investigating. We've performed O/R mapper profiling and RDBMS profiling to see which queries were executed during the task, how many queries were generated and executed and how long they took to complete, including network transportation. All this data reveals two things: which parts are big contributors to the total time taken and which parts are irrelevant. Both aspects are very important. The parts which are irrelevant (i.e. don't contribute significantly to the total time taken) can be ignored from now on, we won't look at them. The parts which contribute a lot to the total time taken are important to look at. We now have to first look at the .NET profiler results, to see whether the time taken is consumed in our own code, in .NET framework code, in the O/R mapper itself or somewhere else. For example if most of the time is consumed by DbCommand.ExecuteReader, the time it took to complete the task is depending on the time the data is fetched from the database. If there was just 1 query executed, according to tracing or O/R mapper profilers / RDBMS profilers, check whether that query is optimal, uses indexes or has to deal with a lot of data. Interpret means that you follow the path from begin to end through the data collected and determine where, along the path, the most time is contributed. It also means that you have to check whether this was expected or is totally unexpected. My previous example of the 10 row resultset of a query which groups millions of rows will likely reveal that a long time is spend inside the database and almost no time is spend in the .NET code, meaning the RDBMS part contributes the most to the total time taken, the rest is compared to that time, irrelevant. Considering the vastness of the source data set, it's expected this will take some time. However, does it need tweaking? Perhaps all possible tweaks are already in place. In the interpret step you then have to decide that further action in this area is necessary or not, based on what the analysis results show: if the analysis results were unexpected and in the area where the most time is contributed to the total time taken is room for improvement, action should be taken. If not, you can only accept the situation and move on. In all cases, document your decision together with the analysis you've done. If you decide that the perceived performance problem is actually expected due to the nature of the task performed, it's essential that in the future when someone else looks at the application and starts asking questions you can answer them properly and new analysis is only necessary if situations changed. Fix After interpreting the analysis results you've concluded that some areas need adjustment. This is the fix step: you're actively correcting the performance problem with proper action targeted at the real cause. In many cases related to O/R mapper powered applications it means you'll use different features of the O/R mapper to achieve the same goal, or apply optimizations at the RDBMS level. It could also mean you apply caching inside your application (compromise memory consumption over performance) to avoid unnecessary re-querying data and re-consuming the results. After applying a change, it's key you re-do the analysis and interpretation steps: compare the results and expectations with what you had before, to see whether your actions had any effect or whether it moved the problem to a different part of the application. Don't fall into the trap to do partly analysis: do the full analysis again: .NET profiling and O/R mapper / RDBMS profiling. It might very well be that the changes you've made make one part faster but another part significantly slower, in such a way that the overall problem hasn't changed at all. Performance tuning is dealing with compromises and making choices: to use one feature over the other, to accept a higher memory footprint, to go away from the strict-OO path and execute queries directly onto the RDBMS, these are choices and compromises which will cross your path if you want to fix performance problems with respect to O/R mappers or data-access and databases in general. In most cases it's not a big issue: alternatives are often good choices too and the compromises aren't that hard to deal with. What is important is that you document why you made a choice, a compromise: which analysis data, which interpretation led you to the choice made. This is key for good maintainability in the years to come. Most common performance problems with O/R mappers Below is an incomplete list of common performance problems related to data-access / O/R mappers / RDBMS code. It will help you with fixing the hotspots you found in the interpretation step. SELECT N+1: (Lazy-loading specific). Lazy loading triggered performance bottlenecks. Consider a list of Orders bound to a grid. You have a Field mapped onto a related field in Order, Customer.CompanyName. Showing this column in the grid will make the grid fetch (indirectly) for each row the Customer row. This means you'll get for the single list not 1 query (for the orders) but 1+(the number of orders shown) queries. To solve this: use eager loading using a prefetch path to fetch the customers with the orders. SELECT N+1 is easy to spot with an O/R mapper profiler or RDBMS profiler: if you see a lot of identical queries executed at once, you have this problem. Prefetch paths using many path nodes or sorting, or limiting. Eager loading problem. Prefetch paths can help with performance, but as 1 query is fetched per node, it can be the number of data fetched in a child node is bigger than you think. Also consider that data in every node is merged on the client within the parent. This is fast, but it also can take some time if you fetch massive amounts of entities. If you keep fetches small, you can use tuning parameters like the ParameterizedPrefetchPathThreshold setting to get more optimal queries. Deep inheritance hierarchies of type Target Per Entity/Type. If you use inheritance of type Target per Entity / Type (each type in the inheritance hierarchy is mapped onto its own table/view), fetches will join subtype- and supertype tables in many cases, which can lead to a lot of performance problems if the hierarchy has many types. With this problem, keep inheritance to a minimum if possible, or switch to a hierarchy of type Target Per Hierarchy, which means all entities in the inheritance hierarchy are mapped onto the same table/view. Of course this has its own set of drawbacks, but it's a compromise you might want to take. Fetching massive amounts of data by fetching large lists of entities. LLBLGen Pro supports paging (and limiting the # of rows returned), which is often key to process through large sets of data. Use paging on the RDBMS if possible (so a query is executed which returns only the rows in the page requested). When using paging in a web application, be sure that you switch server-side paging on on the datasourcecontrol used. In this case, paging on the grid alone is not enough: this can lead to fetching a lot of data which is then loaded into the grid and paged there. Keep note that analyzing queries for paging could lead to the false assumption that paging doesn't occur, e.g. when the query contains a field of type ntext/image/clob/blob and DISTINCT can't be applied while it should have (e.g. due to a join): the datareader will do DISTINCT filtering on the client. this is a little slower but it does perform paging functionality on the data-reader so it won't fetch all rows even if the query suggests it does. Fetch massive amounts of data because blob/clob/ntext/image fields aren't excluded. LLBLGen Pro supports field exclusion for queries. You can exclude fields (also in prefetch paths) per query to avoid fetching all fields of an entity, e.g. when you don't need them for the logic consuming the resultset. Excluding fields can greatly reduce the amount of time spend on data-transport across the network. Use this optimization if you see that there's a big difference between query execution time on the RDBMS and the time reported by the .NET profiler for the ExecuteReader method call. Doing client-side aggregates/scalar calculations by consuming a lot of data. If possible, try to formulate a scalar query or group by query using the projection system or GetScalar functionality of LLBLGen Pro to do data consumption on the RDBMS server. It's far more efficient to process data on the RDBMS server than to first load it all in memory, then traverse the data in-memory to calculate a value. Using .ToList() constructs inside linq queries. It might be you use .ToList() somewhere in a Linq query which makes the query be run partially in-memory. Example: var q = from c in metaData.Customers.ToList() where c.Country=="Norway" select c; This will actually fetch all customers in-memory and do an in-memory filtering, as the linq query is defined on an IEnumerable<T>, and not on the IQueryable<T>. Linq is nice, but it can often be a bit unclear where some parts of a Linq query might run. Fetching all entities to delete into memory first. To delete a set of entities it's rather inefficient to first fetch them all into memory and then delete them one by one. It's more efficient to execute a DELETE FROM ... WHERE query on the database directly to delete the entities in one go. LLBLGen Pro supports this feature, and so do some other O/R mappers. It's not always possible to do this operation in the context of an O/R mapper however: if an O/R mapper relies on a cache, these kind of operations are likely not supported because they make it impossible to track whether an entity is actually removed from the DB and thus can be removed from the cache. Fetching all entities to update with an expression into memory first. Similar to the previous point: it is more efficient to update a set of entities directly with a single UPDATE query using an expression instead of fetching the entities into memory first and then updating the entities in a loop, and afterwards saving them. It might however be a compromise you don't want to take as it is working around the idea of having an object graph in memory which is manipulated and instead makes the code fully aware there's a RDBMS somewhere. Conclusion Performance tuning is almost always about compromises and making choices. It's also about knowing where to look and how the systems in play behave and should behave. The four steps I provided should help you stay focused on the real problem and lead you towards the solution. Knowing how to optimally use the systems participating in your own code (.NET framework, O/R mapper, RDBMS, network/services) is key for success as well as knowing what's going on inside the application you built. I hope you'll find this guide useful in tracking down performance problems and dealing with them in a useful way.  

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  • Include weather information in ASP.Net site from weather.com services

    - by sreejukg
    In this article, I am going to demonstrate how you can use the XMLOAP services (referred as XOAP from here onwards) provided by weather.com to display the weather information in your website. The XOAP services are available to be used for free of charge, provided you are comply with requirements from weather.com. I am writing this article from a technical point of view. If you are planning to use weather.com XOAP services in your application, please refer to the terms and conditions from weather.com website. In order to start using the XOAP services, you need to sign up the XOAP datafeed. The signing process is simple, you simply browse the url http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html. The URL looks similar to the following. Click on the sign up button, you will reach the registration page. Here you need to specify the site name you need to use this feed for. The form looks similar to the following. Once you fill all the mandatory information, click on save and continue button. That’s it. The registration is over. You will receive an email that contains your partner id, license key and SDK. The SDK available in a zipped format, contains the terms of use and documentation about the services available. Other than this the SDK includes the logos and icons required to display the weather information. As per the SDK, currently there are 2 types of information available through XOAP. These services are Current Conditions for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Hourly Five-Day Forecast (today + 4 additional forecast days in consecutive order beginning with tomorrow) for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Three Times Daily The SDK provides detailed information about the fields included in response of each service. Additionally there is a refresh rate that you need to comply with. As per the SDK, the refresh rate means the following “Refresh Rate” shall mean the maximum frequency with which you may call the XML Feed for a given LocID requesting a data set for that LocID. During the time period in between refresh periods the data must be cached by you either in the memory on your servers or in Your Desktop Application. About the Services Weather.com will provide you with access to the XML Feed over the Internet through the hostname xoap.weather.com. The weather data from the XML feed must be requested for a specific location. So you need a location ID (LOC ID). The XML feed work with 2 types of location IDs. First one is with City Identifiers and second one is using 5 Digit US postal codes. If you do not know your location ID, don’t worry, there is a location id search service available for you to retrieve the location id from city name. Since I am a resident in the Kingdom of Bahrain, I am going to retrieve the weather information for Manama(the capital of Bahrain) . In order to get the location ID for Manama, type the following URL in your address bar. http://xoap.weather.com/search/search?where=manama I got the following XML output. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- This document is intended only for use by authorized licensees of The –> <!-- Weather Channel. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Copyright 1995-2011, –> <!-- The Weather Channel Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. –> <search ver="3.0">       <loc id="BAXX0001" type="1">Al Manama, Bahrain</loc> </search> You can try this with any city name, if the city is available, it will return the location id, and otherwise, it will return nothing. In order to get the weather information, from XOAP,  you need to pass certain parameters to the XOAP service. A brief about the parameters are as follows. Please refer SDK for more details. Parameter name Possible Value cc Optional, if you include this, the current condition will be returned. Value can be anything, as it will be ignored e.g. cc=* dayf If you want the forecast for 5 days, specify dayf=5 This is optional iink Value should be XOAP par Your partner id. You can find this in your registration email from weather.com prod Value should be XOAP key The license key assigned to you. This will be available in the registration email unit s or m (standard or matric or you can think of Celsius/Fahrenheit) this is optional field, if not specified the unit will be standard(s) The URL host for the XOAP service is http://xoap.weather.com. So for my purpose, I need the following request to be made to access the XOAP services. http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=*********&key=************** (The ***** to be replaced with the corresponding alternatives) The response XML have a root element “weather”. Under the root element, it has the following sections <head> - the meta data information about the weather results returned. <loc> - the location data block that provides, the information about the location for which the wheather data is retrieved. <lnks> - the 4 promotional links you need to place along with the weather display. Additional to these 4 links, there should be another link with weather channel logo to the home page of weather.com. <cc> - the current condition data. This element will be there only if you specify the cc element in the request. <dayf> - the forcast data as you specified. This element will be there only if you specify the dayf in the request. In this walkthrough, I am going to capture the weather information for Manama (Location ID: BAXX0001). You need 2 applications to display weather information in your website. A Console application that retrieves data from the XMLOAP and store in the SQL Server database (or any data store as you prefer).This application will be scheduled to execute in every 25 minutes using windows task scheduler, so that we can comply with the refresh rate. A web application that display data from the SQL Server database Retrieve the Weather from XOAP I have created a console application named, Weather Service. I created a SQL server database, with the following columns. I named the table as tblweather. You are free to choose any name. Column name Description lastUpdated Datetime, this is the last time when the weather data is updated. This is the time of the service running TemparatureDateTime The date and time returned by XML feed Temparature The temperature returned by the XML feed. TemparatureUnit The unit of the temperature returned by the XML feed iconId The id of the icon to be used. Currently 48 icons from 0 to 47 are available. WeatherDescription The Weather Description Phrase returned by the feed. Link1url The url to the first promo link Link1Text The text for the first promo link Link2url The url to the second promo link Link2Text The text for the second promo link Link3url The url to the third promo link Link3Text The text for the third promo link Link4url The url to the fourth promo link Link4Text The text for the fourth promo link Every time when the service runs, the application will update the database columns from the XOAP data feed. When the application starts, It is going to get the data as XML from the url. This demonstration uses LINQ to extract the necessary data from the fetched XML. The following are the code segment for extracting data from the weather XML using LINQ. // first, create an instance of the XDocument class with the XOAP URL. replace **** with the corresponding values. XDocument weather = XDocument.Load("http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=***********&key=c*********"); // construct a query using LINQ var feedResult = from item in weather.Descendants() select new { unit = item.Element("head").Element("ut").Value, temp = item.Element("cc").Element("tmp").Value, tempDate = item.Element("cc").Element("lsup").Value, iconId = item.Element("cc").Element("icon").Value, description = item.Element("cc").Element("t").Value, links = from link in item.Elements("lnks").Elements("link") select new { url = link.Element("l").Value, text = link.Element("t").Value } }; // Load the root node to a variable, you may use foreach construct instead. var item1 = feedResult.First(); *If you want to learn more about LINQ and XML, read this nice blog from Scott GU. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/08/07/using-linq-to-xml-and-how-to-build-a-custom-rss-feed-reader-with-it.aspx Now you have all the required values in item1. For e.g. if you want to get the temperature, use item1.temp; Now I just need to execute an SQL query against the database. See the connection part. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { string strSql = @"update tblweather set lastupdated=getdate(), temparatureDateTime = @temparatureDateTime, temparature=@temparature, temparatureUnit=@temparatureUnit, iconId = @iconId, description=@description, link1url=@link1url, link1text=@link1text, link2url=@link2url, link2text=@link2text,link3url=@link3url, link3text=@link3text,link4url=@link4url, link4text=@link4text"; SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand(strSql, conn); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureDateTime", item1.tempDate); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparature", item1.temp); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureUnit", item1.unit); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("description", item1.description); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("iconId", item1.iconId); var lstLinks = item1.links; comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1url", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1text", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2url", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2text", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3url", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3text", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4url", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4text", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).text); conn.Open(); comm.ExecuteNonQuery(); conn.Close(); Console.WriteLine("database updated"); } Now click ctrl + f5 to run the service. I got the following output Check your database and make sure, the data is updated with the latest information from the service. (Make sure you inserted one row in the database by entering some values before executing the service. Otherwise you need to modify your application code to count the rows and conditionally perform insert/update query) Display the Weather information in ASP.Net page Now you got all the data in the database. You just need to create a web application and display the data from the database. I created a new ASP.Net web application with a default.aspx page. In order to comply with the terms of weather.com, You need to use Weather.com logo along with the weather display. You can find the necessary logos to use under the folder “logos” in the SDK. Additionally copy any of the icon set from the folder “icons” to your web application. I used the 93x93 icon set. You are free to use any other sizes available. The design view of the page in VS2010 looks similar to the following. The page contains a heading, an image control (for displaying the weather icon), 2 label controls (for displaying temperature and weather description), 4 hyperlinks (for displaying the 4 promo links returned by the XOAP service) and weather.com logo with hyperlink to the weather.com home page. I am going to write code that will update the values of these controls from the values stored in the database by the service application as mentioned in the previous step. Go to the code behind file for the webpage, enter the following code under Page_Load event handler. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand("select top 1 * from tblweather", conn); conn.Open(); SqlDataReader reader = comm.ExecuteReader(); if (reader.Read()) { lblTemparature.Text = reader["temparature"].ToString() + "&deg;" + reader["temparatureUnit"].ToString(); lblWeatherDescription.Text = reader["description"].ToString(); imgWeather.ImageUrl = "icons/" + reader["iconId"].ToString() + ".png"; lnk1.Text = reader["link1text"].ToString(); lnk1.NavigateUrl = reader["link1url"].ToString(); lnk2.Text = reader["link2text"].ToString(); lnk2.NavigateUrl = reader["link2url"].ToString(); lnk3.Text = reader["link3text"].ToString(); lnk3.NavigateUrl = reader["link3url"].ToString(); lnk4.Text = reader["link4text"].ToString(); lnk4.NavigateUrl = reader["link4url"].ToString(); } conn.Close(); } Press ctrl + f5 to run the page. You will see the following output. That’s it. You need to configure the console application to run every 25 minutes so that the database is updated. Also you can fetch the forecast information and store those in the database, and then retrieve it later in your web page. Since the data resides in your database, you have the full control over your display. You need to make sure your website comply with weather.com license requirements. If you want to get the source code of this walkthrough through the application, post your email address below. Hope you enjoy the reading.

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  • Extending NerdDinner: Adding Geolocated Flair

    - by Jon Galloway
    NerdDinner is a website with the audacious goal of “Organizing the world’s nerds and helping them eat in packs.” Because nerds aren’t likely to socialize with others unless a website tells them to do it. Scott Hanselman showed off a lot of the cool features we’ve added to NerdDinner lately during his popular talk at MIX10, Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform. Did you miss it? Go ahead and watch it, I’ll wait. One of the features we wanted to add was flair. You know about flair, right? It’s a way to let folks who like your site show it off in their own site. For example, here’s my StackOverflow flair: Great! So how could we add some of this flair stuff to NerdDinner? What do we want to show? If we’re going to encourage our users to give up a bit of their beautiful website to show off a bit of ours, we need to think about what they’ll want to show. For instance, my StackOverflow flair is all about me, not StackOverflow. So how will this apply to NerdDinner? Since NerdDinner is all about organizing local dinners, in order for the flair to be useful it needs to make sense for the person viewing the web page. If someone visits from Egypt visits my blog, they should see information about NerdDinners in Egypt. That’s geolocation – localizing site content based on where the browser’s sitting, and it makes sense for flair as well as entire websites. So we’ll set up a simple little callout that prompts them to host a dinner in their area: Hopefully our flair works and there is a dinner near your viewers, so they’ll see another view which lists upcoming dinners near them: The Geolocation Part Generally website geolocation is done by mapping the requestor’s IP address to a geographic area. It’s not an exact science, but I’ve always found it to be pretty accurate. There are (at least) three ways to handle it: You pay somebody like MaxMind for a database (with regular updates) that sits on your server, and you use their API to do lookups. I used this on a pretty big project a few years ago and it worked well. You use HTML 5 Geolocation API or Google Gears or some other browser based solution. I think those are cool (I use Google Gears a lot), but they’re both in flux right now and I don’t think either has a wide enough of an install base yet to rely on them. You might want to, but I’ve heard you do all kinds of crazy stuff, and sometimes it gets you in trouble. I don’t mean talk out of line, but we all laugh behind your back a bit. But, hey, it’s up to you. It’s your flair or whatever. There are some free webservices out there that will take an IP address and give you location information. Easy, and works for everyone. That’s what we’re doing. I looked at a few different services and settled on IPInfoDB. It’s free, has a great API, and even returns JSON, which is handy for Javascript use. The IP query is pretty simple. We hit a URL like this: http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip=74.125.45.100&timezone=false … and we get an XML response back like this… <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Response> <Ip>74.125.45.100</Ip> <Status>OK</Status> <CountryCode>US</CountryCode> <CountryName>United States</CountryName> <RegionCode>06</RegionCode> <RegionName>California</RegionName> <City>Mountain View</City> <ZipPostalCode>94043</ZipPostalCode> <Latitude>37.4192</Latitude> <Longitude>-122.057</Longitude> </Response> So we’ll build some data transfer classes to hold the location information, like this: public class LocationInfo { public string Country { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public string City { get; set; } public string ZipPostalCode { get; set; } public LatLong Position { get; set; } } public class LatLong { public float Lat { get; set; } public float Long { get; set; } } And now hitting the service is pretty simple: public static LocationInfo HostIpToPlaceName(string ip) { string url = "http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip={0}&timezone=false"; url = String.Format(url, ip); var result = XDocument.Load(url); var location = (from x in result.Descendants("Response") select new LocationInfo { City = (string)x.Element("City"), RegionName = (string)x.Element("RegionName"), Country = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), ZipPostalCode = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), Position = new LatLong { Lat = (float)x.Element("Latitude"), Long = (float)x.Element("Longitude") } }).First(); return location; } Getting The User’s IP Okay, but first we need the end user’s IP, and you’d think it would be as simple as reading the value from HttpContext: HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress But you’d be wrong. Sorry. UserHostAddress just wraps HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"], but that doesn’t get you the IP for users behind a proxy. That’s in another header, “HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR". So you can either hit a wrapper and then check a header, or just check two headers. I went for uniformity: string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; We’re almost set to wrap this up, but first let’s talk about our views. Yes, views, because we’ll have two. Selecting the View We wanted to make it easy for people to include the flair in their sites, so we looked around at how other people were doing this. The StackOverflow folks have a pretty good flair system, which allows you to include the flair in your site as either an IFRAME reference or a Javascript include. We’ll do both. We have a ServicesController to handle use of the site information outside of NerdDinner.com, so this fits in pretty well there. We’ll be displaying the same information for both HTML and Javascript flair, so we can use one Flair controller action which will return a different view depending on the requested format. Here’s our general flow for our controller action: Get the user’s IP Translate it to a location Grab the top three upcoming dinners that are near that location Select the view based on the format (defaulted to “html”) Return a FlairViewModel which contains the list of dinners and the location information public ActionResult Flair(string format = "html") { string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty( Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; var location = GeolocationService.HostIpToPlaceName(SourceIP); var dinners = dinnerRepository. FindByLocation(location.Position.Lat, location.Position.Long). OrderByDescending(p => p.EventDate).Take(3); // Select the view we'll return. // Using a switch because we'll add in JSON and other formats later. string view; switch (format.ToLower()) { case "javascript": view = "JavascriptFlair"; break; default: view = "Flair"; break; } return View( view, new FlairViewModel { Dinners = dinners.ToList(), LocationName = string.IsNullOrEmpty(location.City) ? "you" : String.Format("{0}, {1}", location.City, location.RegionName) } ); } Note: I’m not in love with the logic here, but it seems like overkill to extract the switch statement away when we’ll probably just have two or three views. What do you think? The HTML View The HTML version of the view is pretty simple – the only thing of any real interest here is the use of an extension method to truncate strings that are would cause the titles to wrap. public static string Truncate(this string s, int maxLength) { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(s) || maxLength <= 0) return string.Empty; else if (s.Length > maxLength) return s.Substring(0, maxLength) + "..."; else return s; }   So here’s how the HTML view ends up looking: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<FlairViewModel>" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Nerd Dinner</title> <link href="/Content/Flair.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="nd-wrapper"> <h2 id="nd-header">NerdDinner.com</h2> <div id="nd-outer"> <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> <div id="nd-bummer"> Looks like there's no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create">host one</a>?</div> <% } else { %> <h3> Dinners Near You</h3> <ul> <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> <li> <%: Html.ActionLink(String.Format("{0} with {1} on {2}", item.Title.Truncate(20), item.HostedBy, item.EventDate.ToShortDateString()), "Details", "Dinners", new { id = item.DinnerID }, new { target = "_blank" })%></li> <% } %> </ul> <% } %> <div id="nd-footer"> More dinners and fun at <a target="_blank" href="http://nrddnr.com">http://nrddnr.com</a></div> </div> </div> </body> </html> You’d include this in a page using an IFRAME, like this: <IFRAME height=230 marginHeight=0 src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair" frameBorder=0 width=160 marginWidth=0 scrolling=no></IFRAME> The Javascript view The Javascript flair is written so you can include it in a webpage with a simple script include, like this: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair?format=javascript"></script> The goal of this view is very similar to the HTML embed view, with a few exceptions: We’re creating a script element and adding it to the head of the document, which will then document.write out the content. Note that you have to consider if your users will actually have a <head> element in their documents, but for website flair use cases I think that’s a safe bet. Since the content is being added to the existing page rather than shown in an IFRAME, all links need to be absolute. That means we can’t use Html.ActionLink, since it generates relative routes. We need to escape everything since it’s being written out as strings. We need to set the content type to application/x-javascript. The easiest way to do that is to use the <%@ Page ContentType%> directive. <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<NerdDinner.Models.FlairViewModel>" ContentType="application/x-javascript" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> document.write('<script>var link = document.createElement(\"link\");link.href = \"http://nerddinner.com/content/Flair.css\";link.rel = \"stylesheet\";link.type = \"text/css\";var head = document.getElementsByTagName(\"head\")[0];head.appendChild(link);</script>'); document.write('<div id=\"nd-wrapper\"><h2 id=\"nd-header\">NerdDinner.com</h2><div id=\"nd-outer\">'); <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-bummer\">Looks like there\'s no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create\">host one</a>?</div>'); <% } else { %> document.write('<h3> Dinners Near You</h3><ul>'); <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> document.write('<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com/<%: item.DinnerID %>\"><%: item.Title.Truncate(20) %> with <%: item.HostedBy %> on <%: item.EventDate.ToShortDateString() %></a></li>'); <% } %> document.write('</ul>'); <% } %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-footer\"> More dinners and fun at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com\">http://nrddnr.com</a></div></div></div>'); Getting IP’s for Testing There are a variety of online services that will translate a location to an IP, which were handy for testing these out. I found http://www.itouchmap.com/latlong.html to be most useful, but I’m open to suggestions if you know of something better. Next steps I think the next step here is to minimize load – you know, in case people start actually using this flair. There are two places to think about – the NerdDinner.com servers, and the services we’re using for Geolocation. I usually think about caching as a first attack on server load, but that’s less helpful here since every user will have a different IP. Instead, I’d look at taking advantage of Asynchronous Controller Actions, a cool new feature in ASP.NET MVC 2. Async Actions let you call a potentially long-running webservice without tying up a thread on the server while waiting for the response. There’s some good info on that in the MSDN documentation, and Dino Esposito wrote a great article on Asynchronous ASP.NET Pages in the April 2010 issue of MSDN Magazine. But let’s think of the children, shall we? What about ipinfodb.com? Well, they don’t have specific daily limits, but they do throttle you if you put a lot of traffic on them. From their FAQ: We do not have a specific daily limit but queries that are at a rate faster than 2 per second will be put in "queue". If you stay below 2 queries/second everything will be normal. If you go over the limit, you will still get an answer for all queries but they will be slowed down to about 1 per second. This should not affect most users but for high volume websites, you can either use our IP database on your server or we can whitelist your IP for 5$/month (simply use the donate form and leave a comment with your server IP). Good programming practices such as not querying our API for all page views (you can store the data in a cookie or a database) will also help not reaching the limit. So the first step there is to save the geolocalization information in a time-limited cookie, which will allow us to look up the local dinners immediately without having to hit the geolocation service.

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  • Windows Phone 7: Building a simple dictionary web client

    - by TechTwaddle
    Like I mentioned in this post a while back, I came across a dictionary web service called Aonaware that serves up word definitions from various dictionaries and is really easy to use. The services page on their website, http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx, lists all the operations that are supported by the dictionary service. Here they are, Word Dictionary Web Service The following operations are supported. For a formal definition, please review the Service Description. Define Define given word, returning definitions from all dictionaries DefineInDict Define given word, returning definitions from specified dictionary DictionaryInfo Show information about the specified dictionary DictionaryList Returns a list of available dictionaries DictionaryListExtended Returns a list of advanced dictionaries (e.g. translating dictionaries) Match Look for matching words in all dictionaries using the given strategy MatchInDict Look for matching words in the specified dictionary using the given strategy ServerInfo Show remote server information StrategyList Return list of all available strategies on the server Follow the links above to get more information on each API. In this post we will be building a simple windows phone 7 client which uses this service to get word definitions for words entered by the user. The application will also allow the user to select a dictionary from all the available ones and look up the word definition in that dictionary. So of all the apis above we will be using only two, DictionaryList() to get a list of all supported dictionaries and DefineInDict() to get the word definition from a particular dictionary. Before we get started, a note to you all; I would have liked to implement this application using concepts from data binding, item templates, data templates etc. I have a basic understanding of what they are but, being a beginner, I am not very comfortable with those topics yet so I didn’t use them. I thought I’ll get this version out of the way and maybe in the next version I could give those a try. A somewhat scary mock-up of the what the final application will look like, Select Dictionary is a list picker control from the silverlight toolkit (you need to download and install the toolkit if you haven’t already). Below it is a textbox where the user can enter words to look up and a button beside it to fetch the word definition when clicked. Finally we have a textblock which occupies the remaining area and displays the word definition from the selected dictionary. Create a silverlight application for windows phone 7, AonawareDictionaryClient, and add references to the silverlight toolkit and the web service. From the solution explorer right on References and select Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit from under the .NET tab, Next, add a reference to the web service. Again right click on References and this time select Add Service Reference In the resulting dialog paste the service url in the Address field and press go, (url –> http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx) once the service is discovered, provide a name for the NameSpace, in this case I’ve called it AonawareDictionaryService. Press OK. You can now use the classes and functions that are generated in the AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService namespace. Let’s get the UI done now. In MainPage.xaml add a namespace declaration to use the toolkit controls, xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit" the content of LayoutRoot is changed as follows, (sorry, no syntax highlighting in this post) <StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,5,0,5">     <TextBlock x:Name="ApplicationTitle" Text="AONAWARE DICTIONARY CLIENT" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>     <!--<TextBlock x:Name="PageTitle" Text="page name" Margin="9,-7,0,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}"/>--> </StackPanel> <!--ContentPanel - place additional content here--> <Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0">     <Grid.RowDefinitions>         <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>         <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>         <RowDefinition Height="*"/>     </Grid.RowDefinitions>     <toolkit:ListPicker Grid.Column="1" x:Name="listPickerDictionaryList"                         Header="Select Dictionary :">     </toolkit:ListPicker>     <Grid Grid.Row="1" Margin="0,5,0,0">         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>             <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBox x:Name="txtboxInputWord" Grid.Column="0" GotFocus="OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus" />         <Button x:Name="btnGo" Grid.Column="1" Click="OnButtonGoClick" >             <Button.Content>                 <Image Source="/images/button-go.png"/>             </Button.Content>         </Button>     </Grid>     <ScrollViewer Grid.Row="2" x:Name="scrollViewer">         <TextBlock  Margin="12,5,12,5"  x:Name="txtBlockWordMeaning" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"                    VerticalAlignment="Stretch" TextWrapping="Wrap"                    FontSize="26" />     </ScrollViewer> </Grid> I have commented out the PageTitle as it occupies too much valuable space, and the ContentPanel is changed to contain three rows. First row contains the list picker control, second row contains the textbox and the button, and the third row contains a textblock within a scroll viewer. The designer will now be showing the final ui, Now go to MainPage.xaml.cs, and add the following namespace declarations, using Microsoft.Phone.Controls; using AonawareDictionaryClient.AonawareDictionaryService; using System.IO.IsolatedStorage; A class called DictServiceSoapClient would have been created for you in the background when you added a reference to the web service. This class functions as a wrapper to the services exported by the web service. All the web service functions that we saw at the start can be access through this class, or more precisely through an object of this class. Create a data member of type DictServiceSoapClient in the Mainpage class, and a function which initializes it, DictServiceSoapClient DictSvcClient = null; private DictServiceSoapClient GetDictServiceSoapClient() {     if (null == DictSvcClient)     {         DictSvcClient = new DictServiceSoapClient();     }     return DictSvcClient; } We have two major tasks remaining. First, when the application loads we need to populate the list picker with all the supported dictionaries and second, when the user enters a word and clicks on the arrow button we need to fetch the word’s meaning. Populating the List Picker In the OnNavigatingTo event of the MainPage, we call the DictionaryList() api. This can also be done in the OnLoading event handler of the MainPage; not sure if one has an advantage over the other. Here’s the code for OnNavigatedTo, protected override void OnNavigatedTo(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e) {     DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient();     client.DictionaryListCompleted += new EventHandler<DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs>(OnGetDictionaryListCompleted);     client.DictionaryListAsync();     base.OnNavigatedTo(e); } Windows Phone 7 supports only async calls to web services. When we added a reference to the dictionary service, asynchronous versions of all the functions were generated automatically. So in the above function we register a handler to the DictionaryListCompleted event which will occur when the call to DictionaryList() gets a response from the server. Then we call the DictionaryListAsynch() function which is the async version of the DictionaryList() api. The result of this api will be sent to the handler OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(), void OnGetDictionaryListCompleted(object sender, DictionaryListCompletedEventArgs e) {     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries;     if (e.Error == null)     {         listOfDictionaries = e.Result;         PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings);     }     else if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionaryList"))     {         listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[];         PopulateListPicker(listOfDictionaries, settings);     }     else     {         MessageBoxResult res = MessageBox.Show("An error occured while retrieving dictionary list, do you want to try again?", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OKCancel);         if (MessageBoxResult.OK == res)         {             GetDictServiceSoapClient().DictionaryListAsync();         }     }     settings.Save(); } I have used IsolatedStorageSettings to store a few things; the entire dictionary list and the dictionary that is selected when the user exits the application, so that the next time when the user starts the application the current dictionary is set to the last selected value. First we check if the api returned any error, if the error object is null e.Result will contain the list (actually array) of Dictionary type objects. If there was an error, we check the isolated storage settings to see if there is a dictionary list stored from a previous instance of the application and if so, we populate the list picker based on this saved list. Note that in this case there are chances that the dictionary list might be out of date if there have been changes on the server. Finally, if none of these cases are true, we display an error message to the user and try to fetch the list again. PopulateListPicker() is passed the array of Dictionary objects and the settings object as well, void PopulateListPicker(Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries, IsolatedStorageSettings settings) {     listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Clear();     foreach (Dictionary dictionary in listOfDictionaries)     {         listPickerDictionaryList.Items.Add(dictionary.Name);     }     settings["SavedDictionaryList"] = listOfDictionaries;     string savedDictionaryName;     if (settings.Contains("SavedDictionary"))     {         savedDictionaryName = settings["SavedDictionary"] as string;     }     else     {         savedDictionaryName = "WordNet (r) 2.0"; //default dictionary, wordnet     }     foreach (string dictName in listPickerDictionaryList.Items)     {         if (dictName == savedDictionaryName)         {             listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem = dictName;             break;         }     }     settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string; } We first clear all the items from the list picker, add the dictionary names from the array and then create a key in the settings called SavedDictionaryList and store the dictionary list in it. We then check if there is saved dictionary available from a previous instance, if there is, we set it as the selected item in the list picker. And if not, we set “WordNet ® 2.0” as the default dictionary. Before returning, we save the selected dictionary in the “SavedDictionary” key of the isolated storage settings. Fetching word definitions Getting this part done is very similar to the above code. We get the input word from the textbox, call into DefineInDictAsync() to fetch the definition and when DefineInDictAsync completes, we get the result and display it in the textblock. Here is the handler for the button click, private void OnButtonGoClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = "Please wait..";     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     if (txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim().Length <= 0)     {         MessageBox.Show("Please enter a word in the textbox and press 'Go'");     }     else     {         Dictionary[] listOfDictionaries = settings["SavedDictionaryList"] as Dictionary[];         string selectedDictionary = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString();         string dictId = "wn"; //default dictionary is wordnet (wn is the dict id)         foreach (Dictionary dict in listOfDictionaries)         {             if (dict.Name == selectedDictionary)             {                 dictId = dict.Id;                 break;             }         }         DictServiceSoapClient client = GetDictServiceSoapClient();         client.DefineInDictCompleted += new EventHandler<DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs>(OnDefineInDictCompleted);         client.DefineInDictAsync(dictId, txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim());     } } We validate the input and then select the dictionary id based on the currently selected dictionary. We need the dictionary id because the api DefineInDict() expects the dictionary identifier and not the dictionary name. We could very well have stored the dictionary id in isolated storage settings too. Again, same as before, we register a event handler for the DefineInDictCompleted event and call the DefineInDictAsync() method passing in the dictionary id and the input word. void OnDefineInDictCompleted(object sender, DefineInDictCompletedEventArgs e) {     WordDefinition wd = e.Result;     scrollViewer.ScrollToVerticalOffset(0.0f);     if (wd.Definitions.Length == 0)     {         txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = String.Format("No definitions were found for '{0}' in '{1}'", txtboxInputWord.Text.Trim(), listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem.ToString().Trim());     }     else     {         foreach (Definition def in wd.Definitions)         {             string str = def.WordDefinition;             str = str.Replace("  ", " "); //some formatting             txtBlockWordMeaning.Text = str;         }     } } When the api completes, e.Result will contain a WordDefnition object. This class is also generated in the background while adding the service reference. We check the word definitions within this class to see if any results were returned, if not, we display a message to the user in the textblock. If a definition was found the text on the textblock is set to display the definition of the word. Adding final touches, we now need to save the current dictionary when the application exits. A small but useful thing is selecting the entire word in the input textbox when the user selects it. This makes sure that if the user has looked up a definition for a really long word, he doesn’t have to press ‘clear’ too many times to enter the next word, protected override void OnNavigatingFrom(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigatingCancelEventArgs e) {     IsolatedStorageSettings settings = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings;     settings["SavedDictionary"] = listPickerDictionaryList.SelectedItem as string;     settings.Save();     base.OnNavigatingFrom(e); } private void OnTextboxInputWordGotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     TextBox txtbox = sender as TextBox;     if (txtbox.Text.Trim().Length > 0)     {         txtbox.SelectionStart = 0;         txtbox.SelectionLength = txtbox.Text.Length;     } } OnNavigatingFrom() is called whenever you navigate away from the MainPage, since our application contains only one page that would mean that it is exiting. I leave you with a short video of the application in action, but before that if you have any suggestions on how to make the code better and improve it please do leave a comment. Until next time…

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  • Microsoft Declares the Future of ASP.NET is Web API

    - by sbwalker
    Sitting on a plane on my way home from Tech Ed 2012 in Orlando, I thought it would be a good time to jot down some key takeaways from this year’s conference. Some of these items I have known since the Microsoft MVP Summit which occurred in Redmond in late February ( but due to NDA restrictions I could not share them with the developer community at large ) and some of them are a result of insightful conversations with a wide variety of industry insiders and Microsoft employees at the conference. First, let’s travel back in time 4 years to the Microsoft MVP Summit in 2008. Microsoft was facing some heat from market newcomer Ruby on Rails and responded with a new web development framework of its own, ASP.NET MVC. At the Summit they estimated that MVC would only be applicable for ~10% of all new web development projects. Based on that prediction I questioned why they were investing such considerable resources for such a relative edge case, but my guess is that they felt it was an important edge case at the time as some of the more vocal .NET evangelists as well as some very high profile start-ups ( ie. Twitter ) had publicly announced their intent to use Rails. Microsoft made a lot of noise about MVC. In fact, they focused so much of their messaging and marketing hype around MVC that it appeared that WebForms was essentially dead. Yes, it may have been true that Microsoft continued to invest in WebForms, but from an outside perspective it really appeared that MVC was the only framework getting any real attention. As a result, MVC started to gain market share. An inside source at Microsoft told me that MVC usage has grown at a rate of about 5% per year and now sits at ~30%. Essentially by focusing so much marketing effort on MVC, Microsoft actually created a larger market demand for it.  This is because in the Microsoft ecosystem there is somewhat of a bandwagon mentality amongst developers. If Microsoft spends a lot of time talking about a specific technology, developers get the perception that it must be really important. So rather than choosing the right tool for the job, they often choose the tool with the most marketing hype and then try to sell it to the customer. In 2010, I blogged about the fact that MVC did not make any business sense for the DotNetNuke platform. This was because our ecosystem relied on third party extensions which were dependent on the WebForms model. If we migrated the core to MVC it would mean that all of the third party extensions would no longer be compatible, which would be an irresponsible business decision for us to make at the expense of our users and customers. However, this did not stop the debate from continuing to occur in our ecosystem. Clearly some developers had drunk Microsoft’s Kool-Aid about MVC and were of the mindset, to paraphrase an old Scottish saying, “If its not MVC, it’s crap”. Now, this is a rather ignorant position to take as most of the benefits of MVC can be achieved in WebForms with solid architecture and responsible coding practices. Clean separation of concerns, unit testing, and direct control over page output are all possible in the WebForms model – it just requires diligence and discipline. So over the past few years some horror stories have begun to bubble to the surface of software development projects focused on ground-up rewrites of web applications for the sole purpose of migrating from WebForms to MVC. These large scale rewrites were typically initiated by engineering teams with only a single argument driving the business decision, that Microsoft was promoting MVC as “the future”. These ill-fated rewrites offered no benefit to end users or customers and in fact resulted in a less stable, less scalable and more complicated systems – basically taking one step forward and two full steps back. A case in point is the announcement earlier this week that a popular open source .NET CMS provider has decided to pull the plug on their new MVC product which has been under active development for more than 18 months and revert back to WebForms. The availability of multiple server-side development models has deeply fragmented the Microsoft developer community. Some folks like to compare it to the age-old VB vs. C# language debate. However, the VB vs. C# language debate was ultimately more of a religious war because at least the two dominant programming languages were compatible with one another and could be used interchangeably. The issue with WebForms vs. MVC is much more challenging. This is because the messaging from Microsoft has positioned the two solutions as being incompatible with one another and as a result web developers feel like they are forced to choose one path or another. Yes, it is true that it has always been technically possible to use WebForms and MVC in the same project, but the tooling support has always made this feel “dirty”. The fragmentation has also made it difficult to attract newcomers as the perceived barrier to entry for learning ASP.NET has become higher. As a result many new software developers entering the market are gravitating to environments where the development model seems more simple and intuitive ( ie. PHP or Ruby ). At the same time that the Web Platform team was busy promoting ASP.NET MVC, the Microsoft Office team has been promoting Sharepoint as a platform for building internal enterprise web applications. Sharepoint has great penetration in the enterprise and over time has been enhanced with improved extensibility capabilities for software developers. But, like many other mature enterprise ASP.NET web applications, it is built on the WebForms development model. Similar to DotNetNuke, Sharepoint leverages a rich third party ecosystem for both generic web controls and more specialized WebParts – both of which rely on WebForms. So basically this resulted in a situation where the Web Platform group had headed off in one direction and the Office team had gone in another direction, and the end customer was stuck in the middle trying to figure out what to do with their existing investments in Microsoft technology. It really emphasized the perception that the left hand was not speaking to the right hand, as strategically speaking there did not seem to be any high level plan from Microsoft to ensure consistency and continuity across the different product lines. With the introduction of ASP.NET MVC, it also made some of the third party control vendors scratch their heads, and wonder what the heck Microsoft was thinking. The original value proposition of ASP.NET over Classic ASP was the ability for web developers to emulate the highly productive desktop development model by using abstract components for creating rich, interactive web interfaces. Web control vendors like Telerik, Infragistics, DevExpress, and ComponentArt had all built sizable businesses offering powerful user interface components to WebForms developers. And even after MVC was introduced these vendors continued to improve their products, offering greater productivity and a superior user experience via AJAX to what was possible in MVC. And since many developers were comfortable and satisfied with these third party solutions, the demand remained strong and the third party web control market continued to prosper despite the availability of MVC. While all of this was going on in the Microsoft ecosystem, there has also been a fundamental shift in the general software development industry. Driven by the explosion of Internet-enabled devices, the focus has now centered on service-oriented architecture (SOA). Service-oriented architecture is all about defining a public API for your product that any client can consume; whether it’s a native application running on a smart phone or tablet, a web browser taking advantage of HTML5 and Javascript, or a rich desktop application running on a PC. REST-based services which utilize the less verbose characteristics of JSON as a transport mechanism, have become the preferred approach over older, more bloated SOAP-based techniques. SOA also has the benefit of producing a cross-platform API, as every major technology stack is able to interact with standard REST-based web services. And for web applications, more and more developers are turning to robust Javascript libraries like JQuery and Knockout for browser-based client-side development techniques for calling web services and rendering content to end users. In fact, traditional server-side page rendering has largely fallen out of favor, resulting in decreased demand for server-side frameworks like Ruby on Rails, WebForms, and (gasp) MVC. In response to these new industry trends, Microsoft did what it always does – it immediately poured some resources into developing a solution which will ensure they remain relevant and competitive in the web space. This work culminated in a new framework which was branded as Web API. It is convention-based and designed to embrace native HTTP standards without copious layers of abstraction. This framework is designed to be the ultimate replacement for both the REST aspects of WCF and ASP.NET MVC Web Services. And since it was developed out of band with a dependency only on ASP.NET 4.0, it means that it can be used immediately in a variety of production scenarios. So at Tech Ed 2012 it was made abundantly clear in numerous sessions that Microsoft views Web API as the “Future of ASP.NET”. In fact, one Microsoft PM even went as far as to say that if we look 3-4 years into the future, that all ASP.NET web applications will be developed using the Web API approach. This is a fairly bold prediction and clearly telegraphs where Microsoft plans to allocate its resources going forward. Currently Web API is being delivered as part of the MVC4 package, but this is only temporary for the sake of convenience. It also sounds like there are still internal discussions going on in terms of how to brand the various aspects of ASP.NET going forward – perhaps the moniker of “ASP.NET Web Stack” coined a couple years ago by Scott Hanselman and utilized as part of the open source release of ASP.NET bits on Codeplex a few months back will eventually stick. Web API is being positioned as the unification of ASP.NET – the glue that is able to pull this fragmented mess back together again. The  “One ASP.NET” strategy will promote the use of all frameworks - WebForms, MVC, and Web API, even within the same web project. Basically the message is utilize the appropriate aspects of each framework to solve your business problems. Instead of navigating developers to a fork in the road, the plan is to educate them that “hybrid” applications are a great strategy for delivering solutions to customers. In addition, the service-oriented approach coupled with client-side development promoted by Web API can effectively be used in both WebForms and MVC applications. So this means it is also relevant to application platforms like DotNetNuke and Sharepoint, which means that it starts to create a unified development strategy across all ASP.NET product lines once again. And so what about MVC? There have actually been rumors floated that MVC has reached a stage of maturity where, similar to WebForms, it will be treated more as a maintenance product line going forward ( MVC4 may in fact be the last significant iteration of this framework ). This may sound alarming to some folks who have recently adopted MVC but it really shouldn’t, as both WebForms and MVC will continue to play a vital role in delivering solutions to customers. They will just not be the primary area where Microsoft is spending the majority of its R&D resources. That distinction will obviously go to Web API. And when the question comes up of why not enhance MVC to make it work with Web API, you must take a step back and look at this from the higher level to see that it really makes no sense. MVC is a server-side page compositing framework; whereas, Web API promotes client-side page compositing with a heavy focus on web services. In order to make MVC work well with Web API, would require a complete rewrite of MVC and at the end of the day, there would be no upgrade path for existing MVC applications. So it really does not make much business sense. So what does this have to do with DotNetNuke? Well, around 8-12 months ago we recognized the software industry trends towards web services and client-side development. We decided to utilize a “hybrid” model which would provide compatibility for existing modules while at the same time provide a bridge for developers who wanted to utilize more modern web techniques. Customers who like the productivity and familiarity of WebForms can continue to build custom modules using the traditional approach. However, in DotNetNuke 6.2 we also introduced a new Service Framework which is actually built on top of MVC2 ( we chose to leverage MVC because it had the most intuitive, light-weight REST implementation in the .NET stack ). The Services Framework allowed us to build some rich interactive features in DotNetNuke 6.2, including the Messaging and Notification Center and Activity Feed. But based on where we know Microsoft is heading, it makes sense for the next major version of DotNetNuke ( which is expected to be released in Q4 2012 ) to migrate from MVC2 to Web API. This will likely result in some breaking changes in the Services Framework but we feel it is the best approach for ensuring the platform remains highly modern and relevant. The fact that our development strategy is perfectly aligned with the “One ASP.NET” strategy from Microsoft means that our customers and developer community can be confident in their current and future investments in the DotNetNuke platform.

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  • Flow-Design Cheat Sheet &ndash; Part I, Notation

    - by Ralf Westphal
    You want to avoid the pitfalls of object oriented design? Then this is the right place to start. Use Flow-Oriented Analysis (FOA) and –Design (FOD or just FD for Flow-Design) to understand a problem domain and design a software solution. Flow-Orientation as described here is related to Flow-Based Programming, Event-Based Programming, Business Process Modelling, and even Event-Driven Architectures. But even though “thinking in flows” is not new, I found it helpful to deviate from those precursors for several reasons. Some aim at too big systems for the average programmer, some are concerned with only asynchronous processing, some are even not very much concerned with programming at all. What I was looking for was a design method to help in software projects of any size, be they large or tiny, involing synchronous or asynchronous processing, being local or distributed, running on the web or on the desktop or on a smartphone. That´s why I took ideas from all of the above sources and some additional and came up with Event-Based Components which later got repositioned and renamed to Flow-Design. In the meantime this has generated some discussion (in the German developer community) and several teams have started to work with Flow-Design. Also I´ve conducted quite some trainings using Flow-Orientation for design. The results are very promising. Developers find it much easier to design software using Flow-Orientation than OOAD-based object orientation. Since Flow-Orientation is moving fast and is not covered completely by a single source like a book, demand has increased for at least an overview of the current state of its notation. This page is trying to answer this demand by briefly introducing/describing every notational element as well as their translation into C# source code. Take this as a cheat sheet to put next to your whiteboard when designing software. However, please do not expect any explanation as to the reasons behind Flow-Design elements. Details on why Flow-Design at all and why in this specific way you´ll find in the literature covering the topic. Here´s a resource page on Flow-Design/Event-Based Components, if you´re able to read German. Notation Connected Functional Units The basic element of any FOD are functional units (FU): Think of FUs as some kind of software code block processing data. For the moment forget about classes, methods, “components”, assemblies or whatever. See a FU as an abstract piece of code. Software then consists of just collaborating FUs. I´m using circles/ellipses to draw FUs. But if you like, use rectangles. Whatever suites your whiteboard needs best.   The purpose of FUs is to process input and produce output. FUs are transformational. However, FUs are not called and do not call other FUs. There is no dependency between FUs. Data just flows into a FU (input) and out of it (output). From where and where to is of no concern to a FU.   This way FUs can be concatenated in arbitrary ways:   Each FU can accept input from many sources and produce output for many sinks:   Flows Connected FUs form a flow with a start and an end. Data is entering a flow at a source, and it´s leaving it through a sink. Think of sources and sinks as special FUs which conntect wires to the environment of a network of FUs.   Wiring Details Data is flowing into/out of FUs through wires. This is to allude to electrical engineering which since long has been working with composable parts. Wires are attached to FUs usings pins. They are the entry/exit points for the data flowing along the wires. Input-/output pins currently need not be drawn explicitly. This is to keep designing on a whiteboard simple and quick.   Data flowing is of some type, so wires have a type attached to them. And pins have names. If there is only one input pin and output pin on a FU, though, you don´t need to mention them. The default is Process for a single input pin, and Result for a single output pin. But you´re free to give even single pins different names.   There is a shortcut in use to address a certain pin on a destination FU:   The type of the wire is put in parantheses for two reasons. 1. This way a “no-type” wire can be easily denoted, 2. this is a natural way to describe tuples of data.   To describe how much data is flowing, a star can be put next to the wire type:   Nesting – Boards and Parts If more than 5 to 10 FUs need to be put in a flow a FD starts to become hard to understand. To keep diagrams clutter free they can be nested. You can turn any FU into a flow: This leads to Flow-Designs with different levels of abstraction. A in the above illustration is a high level functional unit, A.1 and A.2 are lower level functional units. One of the purposes of Flow-Design is to be able to describe systems on different levels of abstraction and thus make it easier to understand them. Humans use abstraction/decomposition to get a grip on complexity. Flow-Design strives to support this and make levels of abstraction first class citizens for programming. You can read the above illustration like this: Functional units A.1 and A.2 detail what A is supposed to do. The whole of A´s responsibility is decomposed into smaller responsibilities A.1 and A.2. FU A thus does not do anything itself anymore! All A is responsible for is actually accomplished by the collaboration between A.1 and A.2. Since A now is not doing anything anymore except containing A.1 and A.2 functional units are devided into two categories: boards and parts. Boards are just containing other functional units; their sole responsibility is to wire them up. A is a board. Boards thus depend on the functional units nested within them. This dependency is not of a functional nature, though. Boards are not dependent on services provided by nested functional units. They are just concerned with their interface to be able to plug them together. Parts are the workhorses of flows. They contain the real domain logic. They actually transform input into output. However, they do not depend on other functional units. Please note the usage of source and sink in boards. They correspond to input-pins and output-pins of the board.   Implicit Dependencies Nesting functional units leads to a dependency tree. Boards depend on nested functional units, they are the inner nodes of the tree. Parts are independent, they are the leafs: Even though dependencies are the bane of software development, Flow-Design does not usually draw these dependencies. They are implicitly created by visually nesting functional units. And they are harmless. Boards are so simple in their functionality, they are little affected by changes in functional units they are depending on. But functional units are implicitly dependent on more than nested functional units. They are also dependent on the data types of the wires attached to them: This is also natural and thus does not need to be made explicit. And it pertains mainly to parts being dependent. Since boards don´t do anything with regard to a problem domain, they don´t care much about data types. Their infrastructural purpose just needs types of input/output-pins to match.   Explicit Dependencies You could say, Flow-Orientation is about tackling complexity at its root cause: that´s dependencies. “Natural” dependencies are depicted naturally, i.e. implicitly. And whereever possible dependencies are not even created. Functional units don´t know their collaborators within a flow. This is core to Flow-Orientation. That makes for high composability of functional units. A part is as independent of other functional units as a motor is from the rest of the car. And a board is as dependend on nested functional units as a motor is on a spark plug or a crank shaft. With Flow-Design software development moves closer to how hardware is constructed. Implicit dependencies are not enough, though. Sometimes explicit dependencies make designs easier – as counterintuitive this might sound. So FD notation needs a ways to denote explicit dependencies: Data flows along wires. But data does not flow along dependency relations. Instead dependency relations represent service calls. Functional unit C is depending on/calling services on functional unit S. If you want to be more specific, name the services next to the dependency relation: Although you should try to stay clear of explicit dependencies, they are fundamentally ok. See them as a way to add another dimension to a flow. Usually the functionality of the independent FU (“Customer repository” above) is orthogonal to the domain of the flow it is referenced by. If you like emphasize this by using different shapes for dependent and independent FUs like above. Such dependencies can be used to link in resources like databases or shared in-memory state. FUs can not only produce output but also can have side effects. A common pattern for using such explizit dependencies is to hook a GUI into a flow as the source and/or the sink of data: Which can be shortened to: Treat FUs others depend on as boards (with a special non-FD API the dependent part is connected to), but do not embed them in a flow in the diagram they are depended upon.   Attributes of Functional Units Creation and usage of functional units can be modified with attributes. So far the following have shown to be helpful: Singleton: FUs are by default multitons. FUs in the same of different flows with the same name refer to the same functionality, but to different instances. Think of functional units as objects that get instanciated anew whereever they appear in a design. Sometimes though it´s helpful to reuse the same instance of a functional unit; this is always due to valuable state it holds. Signify this by annotating the FU with a “(S)”. Multiton: FUs on which others depend are singletons by default. This is, because they usually are introduced where shared state comes into play. If you want to change them to be a singletons mark them with a “(M)”. Configurable: Some parts need to be configured before the can do they work in a flow. Annotate them with a “(C)” to have them initialized before any data items to be processed by them arrive. Do not assume any order in which FUs are configured. How such configuration is happening is an implementation detail. Entry point: In each design there needs to be a single part where “it all starts”. That´s the entry point for all processing. It´s like Program.Main() in C# programs. Mark the entry point part with an “(E)”. Quite often this will be the GUI part. How the entry point is started is an implementation detail. Just consider it the first FU to start do its job.   Patterns / Standard Parts If more than a single wire is attached to an output-pin that´s called a split (or fork). The same data is flowing on all of the wires. Remember: Flow-Designs are synchronous by default. So a split does not mean data is processed in parallel afterwards. Processing still happens synchronously and thus one branch after another. Do not assume any specific order of the processing on the different branches after the split.   It is common to do a split and let only parts of the original data flow on through the branches. This effectively means a map is needed after a split. This map can be implicit or explicit.   Although FUs can have multiple input-pins it is preferrable in most cases to combine input data from different branches using an explicit join: The default output of a join is a tuple of its input values. The default behavior of a join is to output a value whenever a new input is received. However, to produce its first output a join needs an input for all its input-pins. Other join behaviors can be: reset all inputs after an output only produce output if data arrives on certain input-pins

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  • MVVM in Task-It

    As I'm gearing up to write a post about dynamic XAP loading with MEF, I'd like to first talk a bit about MVVM, the Model-View-ViewModel pattern, as I will be leveraging this pattern in my future posts. Download Source Code Why MVVM? Your first question may be, "why do I need this pattern? I've been using a code-behind approach for years and it works fine." Well, you really don't have to make the switch to MVVM, but let me first explain some of the benefits I see for doing so. MVVM Benefits Testability - This is the one you'll probably hear the most about when it comes to MVVM. Moving most of the code from your code-behind to a separate view model class means you can now write unit tests against the view model without any knowledge of a view (UserControl). Multiple UIs - Let's just say that you've created a killer app, it's running in the browser, and maybe you've even made it run out-of-browser. Now what if your boss comes to you and says, "I heard about this new Windows Phone 7 device that is coming out later this year. Can you start porting the app to that device?". Well, now you have to create a new UI (UserControls, etc.) because you have a lot less screen real estate to work with. So what do you do, copy all of your existing UserControls, paste them, rename them, and then start changing the code? Hmm, that doesn't sound so good. But wait, if most of the code that makes your browser-based app tick lives in view model classes, now you can create new view (UserControls) for Windows Phone 7 that reference the same view model classes as your browser-based app. Page state - In Silverlight you're at some point going to be faced with the same issue you dealt with for years in ASP.NET, maintaining page state. Let's say a user hits your Products page, does some stuff (filters record, etc.), then leaves the page and comes back later. It would be best if the Products page was in the same state as when they left it right? Well, if you've thrown away your view (UserControl or Page) and moved off to another part of the UI, when you come back to Products you're probably going to re-instantiate your view...which will put it right back in the state it was when it started. Hmm, not good. Well, with a little help from MEF you can store the state in your view model class, MEF will keep that view model instance hanging around in memory, and then you simply rebind your view to the view model class. I made that sound easy, but it's actually a bit of work to properly store and restore the state. At least it can be done though, which will make your users a lot happier! I'll talk more about this in an upcoming blog post. No event handlers? Another nice thing about MVVM is that you can bind your UserControls to the view model, which may eliminate the need for event handlers in your code-behind. So instead of having a Click handler on a Button (or RadMenuItem), for example, you can now bind your control's Command property to a DelegateCommand in your view model (I'll talk more about Commands in an upcoming post). Instead of having a SelectionChanged event handler on your RadGridView you can now bind its SelectedItem property to a property in your view model, and each time the user clicks a row, the view model property's setter will be called. Now through the magic of binding we can eliminate the need for traditional code-behind based event handlers on our user interface controls, and the best thing is that the view model knows about everything that's going on...which means we can test things without a user interface. The brains of the operation So what we're seeing here is that the view is now just a dumb layer that binds to the view model, and that the view model is in control of just about everything, like what happens when a RadGridView row is selected, or when a RadComboBoxItem is selected, or when a RadMenuItem is clicked. It is also responsible for loading data when the page is hit, as well as kicking off data inserts, updates and deletions. Once again, all of this stuff can be tested without the need for a user interface. If the test works, then it'll work regardless of whether the user is hitting the browser-based version of your app, or the Windows Phone 7 version. Nice! The database Before running the code for this app you will need to create the database. First, create a database called MVVMProject in SQL Server, then run MVVMProject.sql in the MVVMProject/Database directory of your downloaded .zip file. This should give you a Task table with 3 records in it. When you fire up the solution you will also need to update the connection string in web.config to point to your database instead of IBM12\SQLSERVER2008. The code One note about this code is that it runs against the latest Silverlight 4 RC and WCF RIA Services code. Please see my first blog post about updating to the RC bits. Beta to RC - Part 1 At the top of this post is a link to a sample project that demonstrates a sample application with a Tasks page that uses the MVVM pattern. This is a simplified version of how I have implemented the Tasks page in the Task-It application. Youll notice that Tasks.xaml has very little code to it. Just a TextBlock that displays the page title and a ContentControl. <StackPanel>     <TextBlock Text="Tasks" Style="{StaticResource PageTitleStyle}"/>     <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource StandardSpacerStyle}"/>     <ContentControl x:Name="ContentControl1"/> </StackPanel> In List.xaml we have a RadGridView. Notice that the ItemsSource is bound to a property in the view model class call Tasks, SelectedItem is bound to a property in the view model called SelectedItem, and IsBusy is bound to a property in the view model called IsLoading. <Grid>     <telerikGridView:RadGridView ItemsSource="{Binding Tasks}" SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItem, Mode=TwoWay}"                                  IsBusy="{Binding IsLoading}" AutoGenerateColumns="False" IsReadOnly="True" RowIndicatorVisibility="Collapsed"                IsFilteringAllowed="False" ShowGroupPanel="False">         <telerikGridView:RadGridView.Columns>             <telerikGridView:GridViewDataColumn Header="Name" DataMemberBinding="{Binding Name}" Width="3*"/>             <telerikGridView:GridViewDataColumn Header="Due" DataMemberBinding="{Binding DueDate}" DataFormatString="{}{0:d}" Width="*"/>         </telerikGridView:RadGridView.Columns>     </telerikGridView:RadGridView> </Grid> In Details.xaml we have a Save button that is bound to a property called SaveCommand in our view model. We also have a simple form (Im using a couple of controls here from Silverlight.FX for the form layout, FormPanel and Label simply because they make for a clean XAML layout). Notice that the FormPanel is also bound to the SelectedItem in the view model (the same one that the RadGridView is). The two form controls, the TextBox and RadDatePicker) are bound to the SelectedItem's Name and DueDate properties. These are properties of the Task object that WCF RIA Services creates. <StackPanel>     <Button Content="Save" Command="{Binding SaveCommand}" HorizontalAlignment="Left"/>     <Rectangle Style="{StaticResource StandardSpacerStyle}"/>     <fxui:FormPanel DataContext="{Binding SelectedItem}" Style="{StaticResource FormContainerStyle}">         <fxui:Label Text="Name:"/>         <TextBox Text="{Binding Name, Mode=TwoWay}"/>         <fxui:Label Text="Due:"/>         <telerikInput:RadDatePicker SelectedDate="{Binding DueDate, Mode=TwoWay}"/>     </fxui:FormPanel> </StackPanel> In the code-behind of the Tasks control, Tasks.xaml.cs, I created an instance of the view model class (TasksViewModel) in the constructor and set it as the DataContext for the control. The Tasks page will load one of two child UserControls depending on whether you are viewing the list of tasks (List.xaml) or the form for editing a task (Details.xaml). // Set the DataContext to an instance of the view model class var viewModel = new TasksViewModel(); DataContext = viewModel;   // Child user controls (inherit DataContext from this user control) List = new List(); // RadGridView Details = new Details(); // Form When the page first loads, the List is loaded into the ContentControl. // Show the RadGridView first ContentControl1.Content = List; In the code-behind we also listen for a couple of the view models events. The ItemSelected event will be fired when the user clicks on a record in the RadGridView in the List control. The SaveCompleted event will be fired when the user clicks Save in the Details control (the form). Here the view model is in control, and is letting the view know when something needs to change. // Listeners for the view model's events viewModel.ItemSelected += OnItemSelected; viewModel.SaveCompleted += OnSaveCompleted; The event handlers toggle the view between the RadGridView (List) and the form (Details). void OnItemSelected(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     // Show the form     ContentControl1.Content = Details; }   void OnSaveCompleted(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     // Show the RadGridView     ContentControl1.Content = List; } In TasksViewModel, we instantiate a DataContext object and a SaveCommand in the constructor. DataContext is a WCF RIA Services object that well use to retrieve the list of Tasks and to save any changes to a task. Ill talk more about this and Commands in future post, but for now think of the SaveCommand as an event handler that is called when the Save button in the form is clicked. DataContext = new DataContext(); SaveCommand = new DelegateCommand(OnSave); When the TasksViewModel constructor is called we also make a call to LoadTasks. This sets IsLoading to true (which causes the RadGridViews busy indicator to appear) and retrieves the records via WCF RIA Services.         public LoadOperation<Task> LoadTasks()         {             // Show the loading message             IsLoading = true;             // Get the data via WCF RIA Services. When the call has returned, called OnTasksLoaded.             return DataContext.Load(DataContext.GetTasksQuery(), OnTasksLoaded, false);         } When the data is returned, OnTasksLoaded is called. This sets IsLoading to false (which hides the RadGridViews busy indicator), and fires property changed notifications to the UI to let it know that the IsLoading and Tasks properties have changed. This property changed notification basically tells the UI to rebind. void OnTasksLoaded(LoadOperation<Task> lo) {     // Hide the loading message     IsLoading = false;       // Notify the UI that Tasks and IsLoading properties have changed     this.OnPropertyChanged(p => p.Tasks);     this.OnPropertyChanged(p => p.IsLoading); } Next lets look at the view models SelectedItem property. This is the one thats bound to both the RadGridView and the form. When the user clicks a record in the RadGridView its setter gets called (set a breakpoint and see what I mean). The other code in the setter lets the UI know that the SelectedItem has changed (so the form displays the correct data), and fires the event that notifies the UI that a selection has occurred (which tells the UI to switch from List to Details). public Task SelectedItem {     get { return _selectedItem; }     set     {         _selectedItem = value;           // Let the UI know that the SelectedItem has changed (forces it to re-bind)         this.OnPropertyChanged(p => p.SelectedItem);         // Notify the UI, so it can switch to the Details (form) page         NotifyItemSelected();     } } One last thing, saving the data. When the Save button in the form is clicked it fires the SaveCommand, which calls the OnSave method in the view model (once again, set a breakpoint to see it in action). public void OnSave() {     // Save the changes via WCF RIA Services. When the save is complete, call OnSaveCompleted.     DataContext.SubmitChanges(OnSaveCompleted, null); } In OnSave, we tell WCF RIA Services to submit any changes, which there will be if you changed either the Name or the Due Date in the form. When the save is completed, it calls OnSaveCompleted. This method fires a notification back to the UI that the save is completed, which causes the RadGridView (List) to show again. public virtual void OnSaveCompleted(SubmitOperation so) {     // Clear the item that is selected in the grid (in case we want to select it again)     SelectedItem = null;     // Notify the UI, so it can switch back to the List (RadGridView) page     NotifySaveCompleted(); } Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • apt-get fails to upgrade, install, remove etc

    - by Kieran Peat
    I upgraded from 11.10 to 12.04, had no issues that I noticed. Recently tried to install something via software center, but it was throwing errors. Changed to trying to sudo apt-get install instead but again no luck. I've genuinely tried as much as I know to fix this, but I can't so I figured I'd ask here. I've done sudo apt-get update successfully but sudo apt-get upgrade failed with... You might want to run ‘apt-get -f install’ to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies. ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 but it is not installed libqt4-dbus:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-declarative:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-designer:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-network:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-opengl:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-qt3support:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-script:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-scripttools:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-sql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-sql-mysql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-svg:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-test:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-xml:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqt4-xmlpatterns:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqtgui4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not installed libqtwebkit4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0~) but it is not installed libssl1.0.0 : Breaks: libssl1.0.0:i386 (!= 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) but 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 is installed libssl1.0.0:i386 : Breaks: libssl1.0.0 (!= 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6) but 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2 is installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f. Using sudo apt-get -f install... The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgtkhtml3.14-19 libglade2-0 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: libqtcore4:i386 libssl1.0.0:i386 The following NEW packages will be installed libqtcore4:i386 The following packages will be upgraded: libssl1.0.0:i386 1 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 33 not upgraded. 20 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/3,063 kB of archives. After this operation, 9,044 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y E: Internal Error, No file name for libssl1.0.0 I've tried sudo apt-get remove libssl1.0.0 and sudo apt-get remove libssl1.0.0:i386 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 but it is not going to be installed Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 but it is not going to be installed libcurl3:i386 : Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-dbus:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-declarative:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-designer:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-network:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-opengl:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-qt3support:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-script:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-scripttools:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql-mysql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-svg:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-test:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xml:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xmlpatterns:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtgui4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtwebkit4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0~) but it is not going to be installed libsasl2-modules:i386 : Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). I've also tried sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, sudo apt-get autoremove etc without any luck. I also tried to download the .deb and use dpkg -i, but that failed and did not fully understand the method to be honest. Edit This is in response to the comments ref: sudo apt-get install -f doesn't fix broken packages. And now? sudo dpkg --configure -a --force-all dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:amd64 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:i386 is in a different version (1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6) dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: also configuring `libssl1.0.0:i386' (required by `ia32-libs-multiarch:i386') dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.0:i386 (--configure): libssl1.0.0:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 cannot be configured because libssl1.0.0:amd64 is in a different version (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) dpkg: too many errors, stopping Errors were encountered while processing: libssl1.0.0 libssl1.0.0:i386 ... libssl1.0.0:i386 Processing was halted because there were too many errors. Ref: Package manager doesn't work anymore moving /var/lib/kpkg/info/libssl.. kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/libssl1.0.0:i386.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/libssl1.0.0:i386.postinst.bad kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/libssl1.0.0:amd64.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/libssl1.0.0:amd64.postinst.bad kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo apt-get --reinstall install libssl Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Package libssl is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source E: Package 'libssl' has no installation candidate kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo apt-get --reinstall install libssl1.0.0 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 but it is not going to be installed libqt4-dbus:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-declarative:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-designer:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-network:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-opengl:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-qt3support:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-script:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-scripttools:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql-mysql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-svg:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-test:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xml:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xmlpatterns:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtgui4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtwebkit4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0~) but it is not going to be installed libssl1.0.0 : Breaks: libssl1.0.0:i386 (!= 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2) but 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6 is to be installed libssl1.0.0:i386 : Breaks: libssl1.0.0 (!= 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4.6) but 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2 is to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgtkhtml3.14-19 libglade2-0 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: libqtcore4:i386 libssl1.0.0:i386 The following NEW packages will be installed libqtcore4:i386 The following packages will be upgraded: libssl1.0.0:i386 1 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 58 not upgraded. 20 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 3,063 kB of archives. After this operation, 9,044 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main libssl1.0.0 i386 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2 [1,002 kB] Get:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main libqtcore4 i386 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1 [2,061 kB] Fetched 3,063 kB in 4s (731 kB/s) E: Internal Error, No file name for libssl1.0.0 ref: libssl Dependencies removing libssl1.0.0:i386 kieran@kieran-EX58-UD3R:~$ sudo apt-get remove libssl1.0.0:i386 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 but it is not going to be installed Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 but it is not going to be installed libcurl3:i386 : Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-dbus:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-declarative:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-designer:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-network:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-opengl:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-qt3support:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-script:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-scripttools:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-sql-mysql:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-svg:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-test:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xml:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqt4-xmlpatterns:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtgui4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (= 4:4.8.1-0ubuntu4.1) but it is not going to be installed libqtwebkit4:i386 : Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0~) but it is not going to be installed libsasl2-modules:i386 : Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

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  • ASP.NET MVC 2 Model Binding for a Collection

    - by nmarun
    Yes, my yet another post on Model Binding (previous one is here), but this one uses features presented in MVC 2. How I got to writing this blog? Well, I’m on a project where we’re doing some MVC things for a shopping cart. Let me show you what I was working with. Below are my model classes: 1: public class Product 2: { 3: public int Id { get; set; } 4: public string Name { get; set; } 5: public int Quantity { get; set; } 6: public decimal UnitPrice { get; set; } 7: } 8:   9: public class Totals 10: { 11: public decimal SubTotal { get; set; } 12: public decimal Tax { get; set; } 13: public decimal Total { get; set; } 14: } 15:   16: public class Basket 17: { 18: public List<Product> Products { get; set; } 19: public Totals Totals { get; set;} 20: } The view looks as below:  1: <h2>Shopping Cart</h2> 2:   3: <% using(Html.BeginForm()) { %> 4: 5: <h3>Products</h3> 6: <% for (int i = 0; i < Model.Products.Count; i++) 7: { %> 8: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Id</div> 9: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 10: <%= Html.TextBox("ID", Model.Products[i].Id) %> 11: </div> 12: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 13: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Name</div> 14: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 15: <%= Html.TextBox("Name", Model.Products[i].Name) %> 16: </div> 17: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 18: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Quantity</div> 19: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 20: <%= Html.TextBox("Quantity", Model.Products[i].Quantity)%> 21: </div> 22: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 23: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Unit Price</div> 24: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 25: <%= Html.TextBox("UnitPrice", Model.Products[i].UnitPrice)%> 26: </div> 27: <div style="clear:both;"><hr /></div> 28: <% } %> 29: 30: <h3>Totals</h3> 31: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Sub Total</div> 32: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 33: <%= Html.TextBox("SubTotal", Model.Totals.SubTotal)%> 34: </div> 35: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 36: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Tax</div> 37: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 38: <%= Html.TextBox("Tax", Model.Totals.Tax)%> 39: </div> 40: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 41: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;">Total</div> 42: <div style="width: 100px;float:left;"> 43: <%= Html.TextBox("Total", Model.Totals.Total)%> 44: </div> 45: <div style="clear:both;"></div> 46: <p /> 47: <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit" /> 48: <% } %> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Nothing fancy, just a bunch of div’s containing textboxes and a submit button. Just make note that the textboxes have the same name as the property they are going to display. Yea, yea, I know. I’m displaying unit price as a textbox instead of a label, but that’s beside the point (and trust me, this will not be how it’ll look on the production site!!). The way my controller works is that initially two dummy products are added to the basked object and the Totals are calculated based on what products were added in what quantities and their respective unit price. So when the page loads in edit mode, where the user can change the quantity and hit the submit button. In the ‘post’ version of the action method, the Totals get recalculated and the new total will be displayed on the screen. Here’s the code: 1: public ActionResult Index() 2: { 3: Product product1 = new Product 4: { 5: Id = 1, 6: Name = "Product 1", 7: Quantity = 2, 8: UnitPrice = 200m 9: }; 10:   11: Product product2 = new Product 12: { 13: Id = 2, 14: Name = "Product 2", 15: Quantity = 1, 16: UnitPrice = 150m 17: }; 18:   19: List<Product> products = new List<Product> { product1, product2 }; 20:   21: Basket basket = new Basket 22: { 23: Products = products, 24: Totals = ComputeTotals(products) 25: }; 26: return View(basket); 27: } 28:   29: [HttpPost] 30: public ActionResult Index(Basket basket) 31: { 32: basket.Totals = ComputeTotals(basket.Products); 33: return View(basket); 34: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } That’s that. Now I run the app, I see two products with the totals section below them. I look at the view source and I see that the input controls have the right ID, the right name and the right value as well. 1: <input id="ID" name="ID" type="text" value="1" /> 2: <input id="Name" name="Name" type="text" value="Product 1" /> 3: ... 4: <input id="ID" name="ID" type="text" value="2" /> 5: <input id="Name" name="Name" type="text" value="Product 2" /> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } So just as a regular user would do, I change the quantity value of one of the products and hit the submit button. The ‘post’ version of the Index method gets called and I had put a break-point on line 32 in the above snippet. When I hovered my mouse on the ‘basked’ object, happily assuming that the object would be all bound and ready for use, I was surprised to see both basket.Products and basket.Totals were null. Huh? A little research and I found out that the reason the DefaultModelBinder could not do its job is because of a naming mismatch on the input controls. What I mean is that when you have to bind to a custom .net type, you need more than just the property name. You need to pass a qualified name to the name property of the input control. I modified my view and the emitted code looked as below: 1: <input id="Product_Name" name="Product.Name" type="text" value="Product 1" /> 2: ... 3: <input id="Product_Name" name="Product.Name" type="text" value="Product 2" /> 4: ... 5: <input id="Totals_SubTotal" name="Totals.SubTotal" type="text" value="550" /> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Now, I update the quantity and hit the submit button and I see that the Totals object is populated, but the Products list is still null. Once again I went: ‘Hmm.. time for more research’. I found out that the way to do this is to provide the name as: 1: <%= Html.TextBox(string.Format("Products[{0}].ID", i), Model.Products[i].Id) %> 2: <!-- this will be rendered as --> 3: <input id="Products_0__ID" name="Products[0].ID" type="text" value="1" /> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } It was only now that I was able to see both the products and the totals being properly bound in the ‘post’ action method. Somehow, I feel this is kinda ‘clunky’ way of doing things. Seems like people at MS felt in a similar way and offered us a much cleaner way to solve this issue. The simple solution is that instead of using a Textbox, we can either use a TextboxFor or an EditorFor helper method. This one directly spits out the name of the input property as ‘Products[0].ID and so on. Cool right? I totally fell for this and changed my UI to contain EditorFor helper method. At this point, I ran the application, changed the quantity field and pressed the submit button. Of course my basket object parameter in my action method was correctly bound after these changes. I let the app complete the rest of the lines in the action method. When the page finally rendered, I did see that the quantity was changed to what I entered before the post. But, wait a minute, the totals section did not reflect the changes and showed the old values. My status: COMPLETELY PUZZLED! Just to recap, this is what my ‘post’ Index method looked like: 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult Index(Basket basket) 3: { 4: basket.Totals = ComputeTotals(basket.Products); 5: return View(basket); 6: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } A careful debug confirmed that the basked.Products[0].Quantity showed the updated value and the ComputeTotals() method also returns the correct totals. But still when I passed this basket object, it ended up showing the old totals values only. I began playing a bit with the code and my first guess was that the input controls got their values from the ModelState object. For those who don’t know, the ModelState is a temporary storage area that ASP.NET MVC uses to retain incoming attempted values plus binding and validation errors. Also, the fact that input controls populate the values using data taken from: Previously attempted values recorded in the ModelState["name"].Value.AttemptedValue Explicitly provided value (<%= Html.TextBox("name", "Some value") %>) ViewData, by calling ViewData.Eval("name") FYI: ViewData dictionary takes precedence over ViewData's Model properties – read more here. These two indicators led to my guess. It took me quite some time, but finally I hit this post where Brad brilliantly explains why this is the preferred behavior. My guess was right and I, accordingly modified my code to reflect the following way: 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult Index(Basket basket) 3: { 4: // read the following posts to see why the ModelState 5: // needs to be cleared before passing it the view 6: // http://forums.asp.net/t/1535846.aspx 7: // http://forums.asp.net/p/1527149/3687407.aspx 8: if (ModelState.IsValid) 9: { 10: ModelState.Clear(); 11: } 12:   13: basket.Totals = ComputeTotals(basket.Products); 14: return View(basket); 15: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } What this does is that in the case where your ModelState IS valid, it clears the dictionary. This enables the values to be read from the model directly and not from the ModelState. So the verdict is this: If you need to pass other parameters (like html attributes and the like) to your input control, use 1: <%= Html.TextBox(string.Format("Products[{0}].ID", i), Model.Products[i].Id) %> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Since, in EditorFor, there is no direct and simple way of passing this information to the input control. If you don’t have to pass any such ‘extra’ piece of information to the control, then go the EditorFor way. The code used in the post can be found here.

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  • apt-get update mdadm scary warnings

    - by user568829
    Just ran an apt-get update on one of my dedicated servers to be left with a relatively scary warning: Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ... update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686-bigmem W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/1 with UUID c622dd79:496607cf:c230666b:5103eba0 W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE! W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes. W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/2 with UUID 24120323:8c54087c:c230666b:5103eba0 W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE! W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes. W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/6 with UUID eef74de5:9267b2a1:c230666b:5103eba0 W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE! W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes. W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/5 with UUID 5d45b20c:04d8138f:c230666b:5103eba0 W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE! W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes. As instructed I inspected the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf and compared with /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf and they are quite different. Here is the /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf contents: # mdadm.conf # # Please refer to mdadm.conf(5) for information about this file. # # by default, scan all partitions (/proc/partitions) for MD superblocks. # alternatively, specify devices to scan, using wildcards if desired. DEVICE partitions # auto-create devices with Debian standard permissions CREATE owner=root group=disk mode=0660 auto=yes # automatically tag new arrays as belonging to the local system HOMEHOST <system> # instruct the monitoring daemon where to send mail alerts MAILADDR root # definitions of existing MD arrays ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=b93b0b87:5f7c2c46:0043fca9:4026c400 ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=c0fa8842:e214fb1a:fad8a3a2:28f2aabc ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=cdc2a9a9:63bbda21:f55e806c:a5371897 ARRAY /dev/md3 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=eca75495:9c9ce18c:d2bac587:f1e79d80 # This file was auto-generated on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:32:16 +0100 # by mkconf $Id$ And here is the out put from /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf # mdadm.conf # # Please refer to mdadm.conf(5) for information about this file. # # by default, scan all partitions (/proc/partitions) for MD superblocks. # alternatively, specify devices to scan, using wildcards if desired. DEVICE partitions # auto-create devices with Debian standard permissions CREATE owner=root group=disk mode=0660 auto=yes # automatically tag new arrays as belonging to the local system HOMEHOST <system> # instruct the monitoring daemon where to send mail alerts MAILADDR root # definitions of existing MD arrays ARRAY /dev/md1 UUID=c622dd79:496607cf:c230666b:5103eba0 ARRAY /dev/md2 UUID=24120323:8c54087c:c230666b:5103eba0 ARRAY /dev/md5 UUID=5d45b20c:04d8138f:c230666b:5103eba0 ARRAY /dev/md6 UUID=eef74de5:9267b2a1:c230666b:5103eba0 # This configuration was auto-generated on Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:10:00 +1030 # by mkconf 3.1.4-1+8efb9d1+squeeze1 As I understand it I need to replace the four lines that start with 'ARRAY' in the /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf file with the different four 'ARRAY' lines from the /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf output. When I did this and then ran update-initramfs -u there were no more warnings. Is what I have done above correct? I am now terrified of rebooting the server for fear it will not reboot and being a remote dedicated server this would certainly mean downtime and possibly would be expensive to get running again. FOLLOW UP (response to question): the output from mount: /dev/md1 on / type ext3 (rw,usrquota,grpquota) tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620) /dev/md2 on /boot type ext2 (rw) /dev/md5 on /tmp type ext3 (rw) /dev/md6 on /home type ext3 (rw,usrquota,grpquota) mdadm --detail /dev/md0 mdadm: md device /dev/md0 does not appear to be active. mdadm --detail /dev/md1 /dev/md1: Version : 0.90 Creation Time : Sun Aug 14 09:43:08 2011 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 31463232 (30.01 GiB 32.22 GB) Used Dev Size : 31463232 (30.01 GiB 32.22 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 1 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Sat Feb 25 14:03:47 2012 State : clean Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 UUID : c622dd79:496607cf:c230666b:5103eba0 Events : 0.24 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 1 0 active sync /dev/sda1 1 8 17 1 active sync /dev/sdb1 mdadm --detail /dev/md2 /dev/md2: Version : 0.90 Creation Time : Sun Aug 14 09:43:09 2011 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 104320 (101.89 MiB 106.82 MB) Used Dev Size : 104320 (101.89 MiB 106.82 MB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 2 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Sat Feb 25 13:20:20 2012 State : clean Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 UUID : 24120323:8c54087c:c230666b:5103eba0 Events : 0.30 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 2 0 active sync /dev/sda2 1 8 18 1 active sync /dev/sdb2 mdadm --detail /dev/md3 mdadm: md device /dev/md3 does not appear to be active. mdadm --detail /dev/md5 /dev/md5: Version : 0.90 Creation Time : Sun Aug 14 09:43:09 2011 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 2104448 (2.01 GiB 2.15 GB) Used Dev Size : 2104448 (2.01 GiB 2.15 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 5 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Sat Feb 25 14:09:03 2012 State : clean Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 UUID : 5d45b20c:04d8138f:c230666b:5103eba0 Events : 0.30 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 5 0 active sync /dev/sda5 1 8 21 1 active sync /dev/sdb5 mdadm --detail /dev/md6 /dev/md6: Version : 0.90 Creation Time : Sun Aug 14 09:43:09 2011 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 453659456 (432.64 GiB 464.55 GB) Used Dev Size : 453659456 (432.64 GiB 464.55 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 6 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Sat Feb 25 14:10:00 2012 State : active Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 UUID : eef74de5:9267b2a1:c230666b:5103eba0 Events : 0.31 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 6 0 active sync /dev/sda6 1 8 22 1 active sync /dev/sdb6 FOLLOW UP 2 (response to question): Output from /etc/fstab /dev/md1 / ext3 defaults,usrquota,grpquota 1 1 devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 #usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0 /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 # # # /dev/md2 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/sda3 swap swap pri=42 0 0 /dev/sdb3 swap swap pri=42 0 0 /dev/md5 /tmp ext3 defaults 0 0 /dev/md6 /home ext3 defaults,usrquota,grpquota 1 2

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  • http request to cgi python script successful, but the script doesn't seem to run

    - by chipChocolate.py
    I have configured cgi scripts for my apache2 web server. Here is what I want to do: Client uploads the image to the server. (this already works) On success, I want to execute the python script to resize the image. I tried the following and the success function does execute but my python script does not seem to execute: Javascript code that sends the request: var input = document.getElementById('imageLoader'); imageName = input.value; var file = input.files[0]; if(file != undefined){ formData= new FormData(); console.log(formData.length); if(!!file.type.match(/image.*/)){ formData.append("image", file); $.ajax({ url: "upload.php", type: "POST", processData: false, contentType: false, success: function() { var input = document.getElementById('imageLoader'); imageName = input.value; var file = input.files[0]; formData = new FormData(); formData.append("filename", file); $.ajax({ url: "http://localhost/Main/cgi-bin/resize.py", type: "POST", data: formData, processData: false, contentType: false, success: function(data) { console.log(data); } }); // code continues... resize.py: #!/usr/bin/python import cgi import cgitb import Image cgitb.enable() data = cgi.FieldStorage() filename = data.getvalue("filename") im = Image.open("../JS/upload/" + filename) (width, height) = im.size maxWidth = 600 maxHeight = 400 if width > maxWidth: d = float(width) / maxWidth height = int(height / d) width = maxWidth if height > maxHeight: d = float(height) / maxHeight width = int(width / d) height = maxHeight size = (width, height) im = im.resize(size, Image.ANTIALIAS) im.save("../JS/upload/" + filename, quality=100) This is the apache2.conf: <Directory /var/www/html/Main/cgi-bin> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI SetHandler cgi-script AddHandler cgi-script .py .cgi Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> cgi-bin and python script file permissions: drwxrwxr-x 2 mou mou 4096 Aug 24 03:28 cgi-bin -rwxrwxrwx 1 mou mou 1673 Aug 24 03:28 resize.py Edit: Executing this code $.ajax({ url: "http://localhost/Main/cgi-bin/resize.py", type: "POST", data: formData, // formData = {"filename" : "the filename which was saved in a variable whie the image was uploaded"} processData: false, contentType: false, success: function(data) { alert(data); } }); it alerts the following: <body bgcolor="#f0f0f8"><font color="#f0f0f8" size="-5"> --> <body bgcolor="#f0f0f8"><font color="#f0f0f8" size="-5"> --> --> </font> </font> </font> </script> </object> </blockquote> </pre> </table> </table> </table> </table> </table> </font> </font> </font><body bgcolor="#f0f0f8"> <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2 border=0 summary="heading"> <tr bgcolor="#6622aa"> <td valign=bottom>&nbsp;<br> <font color="#ffffff" face="helvetica, arial">&nbsp;<br><big><big><strong>&lt;type 'exceptions.TypeError'&gt;</strong></big></big></font></td ><td align=right valign=bottom ><font color="#ffffff" face="helvetica, arial">Python 2.7.6: /usr/bin/python<br>Sun Aug 24 17:24:15 2014</font></td></tr></table> <p>A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.</p> <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0> <tr><td bgcolor="#d8bbff"><big>&nbsp;</big><a href="file:///var/www/html/Main/cgi-bin/resize.py">/var/www/html/Main/cgi-bin/resize.py</a> in <strong><module></strong>()</td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;10</small>&nbsp;<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;11</small>&nbsp;filename&nbsp;=&nbsp;data.getvalue("filename")<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffccee"><tt>=&gt;<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;12</small>&nbsp;im&nbsp;=&nbsp;Image.open("../JS/upload/"&nbsp;+&nbsp;filename)<br> </tt></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;13</small>&nbsp;<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;14</small>&nbsp;(width,&nbsp;height)&nbsp;=&nbsp;im.size<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><small><font color="#909090">im <em>undefined</em>, <strong>Image</strong>&nbsp;= &lt;module 'Image' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PILcompat/Image.pyc'&gt;, Image.<strong>open</strong>&nbsp;= &lt;function open&gt;, <strong>filename</strong>&nbsp;= '<font color="#c040c0">\xff\xd8\xff\xe0\x00\x10</font>JFIF<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01\x00\x00\xff\xdb\x00</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x06\x04\x05\x06\x05\x04\x06\x06\x05\x06\x07\x07\x06\x08\n\x10\n\n\t\t\n\x14\x0e</font>...<font color="#c040c0">\x94\r\x17\x11</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\xcd\xdc\x1a\xfe\xf1\x05\x1b\x15\xd1</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xce\xe9</font>*<font color="#c040c0">\xb5\x8e</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\x97\x82\x87</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xf4\xaa</font>K<font color="#c040c0">\x83</font>6<font color="#c040c0">\xbf\xfb</font>0<font color="#c040c0">\xa0\xb6</font>8<font color="#c040c0">\xa9</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x86\x8d\x96</font>n+E<font color="#c040c0">\xd3\x7f\x99\xff\xd9</font>'</font></small></td></tr></table> <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0> <tr><td bgcolor="#d8bbff"><big>&nbsp;</big><a href="file:///usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL/Image.py">/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL/Image.py</a> in <strong>open</strong>(fp='../JS/upload/<font color="#c040c0">\xff\xd8\xff\xe0\x00\x10</font>JFIF<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01\x00\x00\xff\xdb\x00</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x06\x04\x05\x06\x05\x04\x06\x06\x05\x06</font>...<font color="#c040c0">\x94\r\x17\x11</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\xcd\xdc\x1a\xfe\xf1\x05\x1b\x15\xd1</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xce\xe9</font>*<font color="#c040c0">\xb5\x8e</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\x97\x82\x87</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xf4\xaa</font>K<font color="#c040c0">\x83</font>6<font color="#c040c0">\xbf\xfb</font>0<font color="#c040c0">\xa0\xb6</font>8<font color="#c040c0">\xa9</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x86\x8d\x96</font>n+E<font color="#c040c0">\xd3\x7f\x99\xff\xd9</font>', mode='r')</td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;1994</small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;if&nbsp;isPath(fp):<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;1995</small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;filename&nbsp;=&nbsp;fp<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffccee"><tt>=&gt;<small>&nbsp;1996</small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;fp&nbsp;=&nbsp;builtins.open(fp,&nbsp;"rb")<br> </tt></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;1997</small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;else:<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><font color="#909090"><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>&nbsp;1998</small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;filename&nbsp;=&nbsp;""<br> </tt></font></td></tr> <tr><td><small><font color="#909090"><strong>fp</strong>&nbsp;= '../JS/upload/<font color="#c040c0">\xff\xd8\xff\xe0\x00\x10</font>JFIF<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01\x00\x00\xff\xdb\x00</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x00\x06\x04\x05\x06\x05\x04\x06\x06\x05\x06</font>...<font color="#c040c0">\x94\r\x17\x11</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\xcd\xdc\x1a\xfe\xf1\x05\x1b\x15\xd1</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xce\xe9</font>*<font color="#c040c0">\xb5\x8e</font>b<font color="#c040c0">\x97\x82\x87</font>R<font color="#c040c0">\xf4\xaa</font>K<font color="#c040c0">\x83</font>6<font color="#c040c0">\xbf\xfb</font>0<font color="#c040c0">\xa0\xb6</font>8<font color="#c040c0">\xa9</font>C<font color="#c040c0">\x86\x8d\x96</font>n+E<font color="#c040c0">\xd3\x7f\x99\xff\xd9</font>', <em>global</em> <strong>builtins</strong>&nbsp;= &lt;module '__builtin__' (built-in)&gt;, builtins.<strong>open</strong>&nbsp;= &lt;built-in function open&gt;</font></small></td></tr></table><p><strong>&lt;type 'exceptions.TypeError'&gt;</strong>: file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str <br><tt><small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</small>&nbsp;</tt>args&nbsp;= ('file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str',) <br><tt><small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</small>&nbsp;</tt>message&nbsp;= 'file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str' <!-- The above is a description of an error in a Python program, formatted for a Web browser because the 'cgitb' module was enabled. In case you are not reading this in a Web browser, here is the original traceback: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/www/html/Main/cgi-bin/resize.py", line 12, in &lt;module&gt; im = Image.open("../JS/upload/" + filename) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL/Image.py", line 1996, in open fp = builtins.open(fp, "rb") TypeError: file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str --> Does this mean that the formData I am sending over is empty?

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  • IIS Strategies for Accessing Secured Network Resources

    - by ErikE
    Problem: A user connects to a service on a machine, such as an IIS web site or a SQL Server database. The site or the database need to gain access to network resources such as file shares (the most common) or a database on a different server. Permission is denied. This is because the user the service is running under doesn't have network permissions in the first place, or if it does, it doesn't have rights to access the remote resource. I keep running into this problem over and over again and am tired of not having a really solid way of handling it. Here are some workarounds I'm aware of: Run IIS as a custom-created domain user who is granted high permissions If permissions are granted one file share at a time, then every time I want to read from a new share, I would have to ask a network admin to add it for me. Eventually, with many web sites reading from many shares, it is going to get really complicated. If permissions are just opened up wide for the user to access any file shares in our domain, then this seems like an unnecessary security surface area to present. This also applies to all the sites running on IIS, rather than just the selected site or virtual directory that needs the access, a further surface area problem. Still use the IUSR account but give it network permissions and set up the same user name on the remote resource (not a domain user, a local user) This also has its problems. For example, there's a file share I am using that I have full rights to for sharing, but I can't log in to the machine. So I have to find the right admin and ask him to do it for me. Any time something has to change, it's another request to an admin. Allow IIS users to connect as anonymous, but set the account used for anonymous access to a high-privilege one This is even worse than giving the IIS IUSR full privileges, because it means my web site can't use any kind of security in the first place. Connect using Kerberos, then delegate This sounds good in principle but has all sorts of problems. First of all, if you're using virtual web sites where the domain name you connect to the site with is not the base machine name (as we do frequently), then you have to set up a Service Principal Name on the webserver using Microsoft's SetSPN utility. It's complicated and apparently prone to errors. Also, you have to ask your network/domain admin to change security policy for both the web server and the domain account so they are "trusted for delegation." If you don't get everything perfectly right, suddenly your intended Kerberos authentication is NTLM instead, and you can only impersonate rather than delegate, and thus no reaching out over the network as the user. Also, this method can be problematic because sometimes you need the web site or database to have permissions that the connecting user doesn't have. Create a service or COM+ application that fetches the resource for the web site Services and COM+ packages are run with their own set of credentials. Running as a high-privilege user is okay since they can do their own security and deny requests that are not legitimate, putting control in the hands of the application developer instead of the network admin. Problems: I am using a COM+ package that does exactly this on Windows Server 2000 to deliver highly sensitive images to a secured web application. I tried moving the web site to Windows Server 2003 and was suddenly denied permission to instantiate the COM+ object, very likely registry permissions. I trolled around quite a bit and did not solve the problem, partly because I was reluctant to give the IUSR account full registry permissions. That seems like the same bad practice as just running IIS as a high-privilege user. Note: This is actually really simple. In a programming language of your choice, you create a class with a function that returns an instance of the object you want (an ADODB.Connection, for example), and build a dll, which you register as a COM+ object. In your web server-side code, you create an instance of the class and use the function, and since it is running under a different security context, calls to network resources work. Map drive letters to shares This could theoretically work, but in my mind it's not really a good long-term strategy. Even though mappings can be created with specific credentials, and this can be done by others than a network admin, this also is going to mean that there are either way too many shared drives (small granularity) or too much permission is granted to entire file servers (large granularity). Also, I haven't figured out how to map a drive so that the IUSR gets the drives. Mapping a drive is for the current user, I don't know the IUSR account password to log in as it and create the mappings. Move the resources local to the web server/database There are times when I've done this, especially with Access databases. Does the database have to live out on the file share? Sometimes, it was just easiest to move the database to the web server or to the SQL database server (so the linked server to it would work). But I don't think this is a great all-around solution, either. And it won't work when the resource is a service rather than a file. Move the service to the final web server/database I suppose I could run a web server on my SQL Server database, so the web site can connect to it using impersonation and make me happy. But do we really want random extra web servers on our database servers just so this is possible? No. Virtual directories in IIS I know that virtual directories can help make remote resources look as though they are local, and this supports using custom credentials for each virtual directory. I haven't been able to come up with, yet, how this would solve the problem for system calls. Users could reach file shares directly, but this won't help, say, classic ASP code access resources. I could use a URL instead of a file path to read remote data files in a web page, but this isn't going to help me make a connection to an Access database, a SQL server database, or any other resource that uses a connection library rather than being able to just read all the bytes and work with them. I wish there was some kind of "service tunnel" that I could create. Think about how a VPN makes remote resources look like they are local. With a richer aliasing mechanism, perhaps code-based, why couldn't even database connections occur under a defined security context? Why not a special Windows component that lets you specify, per user, what resources are available and what alternate credentials are used for the connection? File shares, databases, web sites, you name it. I guess I'm almost talking about a specialized local proxy server. Anyway, so there's my list. I may update it if I think of more. Does anyone have any ideas for me? My current problem today is, yet again, I need a web site to connect to an Access database on a file share. Here we go again...

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  • Overview of SOA Diagnostics in 11.1.1.6

    - by ShawnBailey
    What tools are available for diagnosing SOA Suite issues? There are a variety of tools available to help you and Support diagnose SOA Suite issues in 11g but it can be confusing as to which tool is appropriate for a particular situation and what their relationships are. This blog post will introduce the various tools and attempt to clarify what each is for and how they are related. Let's first list the tools we'll be addressing: RDA: Remote Diagnostic Agent DFW: Diagnostic Framework Selective Tracing DMS: Dynamic Monitoring Service ODL: Oracle Diagnostic Logging ADR: Automatic Diagnostics Repository ADRCI: Automatic Diagnostics Repository Command Interpreter WLDF: WebLogic Diagnostic Framework This overview is not mean to be a comprehensive guide on using all of these tools, however, extensive reference materials are included that will provide many more details on their execution. Another point to note is that all of these tools are applicable for Fusion Middleware as a whole but specific products may or may not have implemented features to leverage them. A couple of the tools have a WebLogic Scripting Tool or 'WLST' interface. WLST is a command interface for executing pre-built functions and custom scripts against a domain. A detailed WLST tutorial is beyond the scope of this post but you can find general information here. There are more specific resources in the below sections. In this post when we refer to 'Enterprise Manager' or 'EM' we are referring to Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. RDA (Remote Diagnostic Agent) RDA is a standalone tool that is used to collect both static configuration and dynamic runtime information from the SOA environment. RDA is generally run manually from the command line against a domain or single server. When opening a new Service Request, including an RDA collection can dramatically decrease the back and forth required to collect logs and configuration information for Support. After installing RDA you configure it to use the SOA Suite module as decribed in the referenced resources. The SOA module includes the Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS) module by default in order to include all of the relevant information for the environment. In addition to this basic configuration there is also an advanced mode where you can set the number of thread dumps for the collections, log files, Incidents, etc. When would you use it? When creating a Service Request or otherwise working with Oracle resources on an issue, capturing environment snapshots to baseline your configuration or to diagnose an issue on your own. How is it related to the other tools? RDA is related to DFW in that it collects the last 10 Incidents from the server by default. In a similar manner, RDA is related to ODL through its collection of the diagnostic logs and these may contain information from Selective Tracing sessions. Examples of what it currently collects: (for details please see the links in the Resources section) Diagnostic Logs (ODL) Diagnostic Framework Incidents (DFW) SOA MDS Deployment Descriptors SOA Repository Summary Statistics Thread Dumps Complete Domain Configuration RDA Resources: Webcast Recording: Using RDA with Oracle SOA Suite 11g Blog Post: Diagnose SOA Suite 11g Issues Using RDA Download RDA How to Collect Analysis Information Using RDA for Oracle SOA Suite 11g Products [ID 1350313.1] How to Collect Analysis Information Using RDA for Oracle SOA Suite and BPEL Process Manager 11g [ID 1352181.1] Getting Started With Remote Diagnostic Agent: Case Study - Oracle WebLogic Server (Video) [ID 1262157.1] top DFW (Diagnostic Framework) DFW provides the ability to collect specific information for a particular problem when that problem occurs. DFW is included with your SOA Suite installation and deployed to the domain. Let's define the components of DFW. Diagnostic Dumps: Specific diagnostic collections that are defined at either the 'system' or product level. Examples would be diagnostic logs or thread dumps. Incident: A collection of Diagnostic Dumps associated with a particular problem Log Conditions: An Oracle Diagnostic Logging event that DFW is configured to listen for. If the event is identified then an Incident will be created. WLDF Watch: The WebLogic Diagnostic Framework or 'WLDF' is not a component of DFW, however, it can be a source of DFW Incident creation through the use of a 'Watch'. WLDF Notification: A Notification is a component of WLDF and is the link between the Watch and DFW. You can configure multiple Notification types in WLDF and associate them with your Watches. 'FMWDFW-notification' is available to you out of the box to allow for DFW notification of Watch execution. Rule: Defines a WLDF Watch or Log Condition for which we want to associate a set of Diagnostic Dumps. When triggered the specified dumps will be collected and added to the Incident Rule Action: Defines the specific Diagnostic Dumps to collect for a particular rule ADR: Automatic Diagnostics Repository; Defined for every server in a domain. This is where Incidents are stored Now let's walk through a simple flow: Oracle Web Services error message OWS-04086 (SOAP Fault) is generated on managed server 1 DFW Log Condition for OWS-04086 evaluates to TRUE DFW creates a new Incident in the ADR for managed server 1 DFW executes the specified Diagnostic Dumps and adds the output to the Incident In this case we'll grab the diagnostic log and thread dump. We might also want to collect the WSDL binding information and SOA audit trail When would you use it? When you want to automatically collect Diagnostic Dumps at a particular time using a trigger or when you want to manually collect the information. In either case it can be readily uploaded to Oracle Support through the Service Request. How is it related to the other tools? DFW generates Incidents which are collections of Diagnostic Dumps. One of the system level Diagonstic Dumps collects the current server diagnostic log which is generated by ODL and can contain information from Selective Tracing sessions. Incidents are included in RDA collections by default and ADRCI is a tool that is used to package an Incident for upload to Oracle Support. In addition, both ODL and DMS can be used to trigger Incident creation through DFW. The conditions and rules for generating Incidents can become quite complicated and the below resources go into more detail. A simpler approach to leveraging at least the Diagnostic Dumps is through WLST (WebLogic Scripting Tool) where there are commands to do the following: Create an Incident Execute a single Diagnostic Dump Describe a Diagnostic Dump List the available Diagnostic Dumps The WLST option offers greater control in what is generated and when. It can be a great help when collecting information for Support. There are overlaps with RDA, however, DFW is geared towards collecting specific runtime information when an issue occurs while existing Incidents are collected by RDA. There are 3 WLDF Watches configured by default in a SOA Suite 11g domain: Stuck Threads, Unchecked Exception and Deadlock. These Watches are enabled by default and will generate Incidents in ADR. They are configured to reset automatically after 30 seconds so they have the potential to create multiple Incidents if these conditions are consistent. The Incidents generated by these Watches will only contain System level Diagnostic Dumps. These same System level Diagnostic Dumps will be included in any application scoped Incident as well. Starting in 11.1.1.6, SOA Suite is including its own set of application scoped Diagnostic Dumps that can be executed from WLST or through a WLDF Watch or Log Condition. These Diagnostic Dumps can be added to an Incident such as in the earlier example using the error code OWS-04086. soa.config: MDS configuration files and deployed-composites.xml soa.composite: All artifacts related to the deployed composite soa.wsdl: Summary of endpoints configured for the composite soa.edn: EDN configuration summary if applicable soa.db: Summary DB information for the SOA repository soa.env: Coherence cluster configuration summary soa.composite.trail: Partial audit trail information for the running composite The current release of RDA has the option to collect the soa.wsdl and soa.composite Diagnostic Dumps. More Diagnostic Dumps for SOA Suite products are planned for future releases along with enhancements to DFW itself. DFW Resources: Webcast Recording: SOA Diagnostics Sessions: Diagnostic Framework Diagnostic Framework Documentation DFW WLST Command Reference Documentation for SOA Diagnostic Dumps in 11.1.1.6 top Selective Tracing Selective Tracing is a facility available starting in version 11.1.1.4 that allows you to increase the logging level for specific loggers and for a specific context. What this means is that you have greater capability to collect needed diagnostic log information in a production environment with reduced overhead. For example, a Selective Tracing session can be executed that only increases the log level for one composite, only one logger, limited to one server in the cluster and for a preset period of time. In an environment where dozens of composites are deployed this can dramatically reduce the volume and overhead of the logging without sacrificing relevance. Selective Tracing can be administered either from Enterprise Manager or through WLST. WLST provides a bit more flexibility in terms of exactly where the tracing is run. When would you use it? When there is an issue in production or another environment that lends itself to filtering by an available context criteria and increasing the log level globally results in too much overhead or irrelevant information. The information is written to the server diagnostic log and is exportable from Enterprise Manager How is it related to the other tools? Selective Tracing output is written to the server diagnostic log. This log can be collected by a system level Diagnostic Dump using DFW or through a default RDA collection. Selective Tracing also heavily leverages ODL fields to determine what to trace and to tag information that is part of a particular tracing session. Available Context Criteria: Application Name Client Address Client Host Composite Name User Name Web Service Name Web Service Port Selective Tracing Resources: Webcast Recording: SOA Diagnostics Session: Using Selective Tracing to Diagnose SOA Suite Issues How to Use Selective Tracing for SOA [ID 1367174.1] Selective Tracing WLST Reference top DMS (Dynamic Monitoring Service) DMS exposes runtime information for monitoring. This information can be monitored in two ways: Through the DMS servlet As exposed MBeans The servlet is deployed by default and can be accessed through http://<host>:<port>/dms/Spy (use administrative credentials to access). The landing page of the servlet shows identical columns of what are known as Noun Types. If you select a Noun Type you will see a table in the right frame that shows the attributes (Sensors) for the Noun Type and the available instances. SOA Suite has several exposed Noun Types that are available for viewing through the Spy servlet. Screenshots of the Spy servlet are available in the Knowledge Base article How to Monitor Runtime SOA Performance With the Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS). Every Noun instance in the runtime is exposed as an MBean instance. As such they are generally available through an MBean browser and available for monitoring through WLDF. You can configure a WLDF Watch to monitor a particular attribute and fire a notification when the threshold is exceeded. A WLDF Watch can use the out of the box DFW notification type to notify DFW to create an Incident. When would you use it? When you want to monitor a metric or set of metrics either manually or through an automated system. When you want to trigger a WLDF Watch based on a metric exposed through DMS. How is it related to the other tools? DMS metrics can be monitored with WLDF Watches which can in turn notify DFW to create an Incident. DMS Resources: How to Monitor Runtime SOA Performance With the Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS) [ID 1368291.1] How to Reset a SOA 11g DMS Metric DMS Documentation top ODL (Oracle Diagnostic Logging) ODL is the primary facility for most Fusion Middleware applications to log what they are doing. Whenever you change a logging level through Enterprise Manager it is ultimately exposed through ODL and written to the server diagnostic log. A notable exception to this is WebLogic Server which uses its own log format / file. ODL logs entries in a consistent, structured way using predefined fields and name/value pairs. Here's an example of a SOA Suite entry: [2012-04-25T12:49:28.083-06:00] [AdminServer] [ERROR] [] [oracle.soa.bpel.engine] [tid: [ACTIVE].ExecuteThread: '1' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'] [userId: ] [ecid: 0963fdde7e77631c:-31a6431d:136eaa46cda:-8000-00000000000000b4,0] [errid: 41] [WEBSERVICE_PORT.name: BPELProcess2_pt] [APP: soa-infra] [composite_name: TestProject2] [J2EE_MODULE.name: fabric] [WEBSERVICE.name: bpelprocess1_client_ep] [J2EE_APP.name: soa-infra] Error occured while handling a post operation[[ When would you use it? You'll use ODL almost every time you want to identify and diagnose a problem in the environment. The entries are written to the server diagnostic log. How is it related to the other tools? The server diagnostic logs are collected by DFW and RDA. Selective Tracing writes its information to the diagnostic log as well. Additionally, DFW log conditions are triggered by ODL log events. ODL Resources: ODL Documentation top ADR (Automatic Diagnostics Repository) ADR is not a tool in and of itself but is where DFW stores the Incidents it creates. Every server in the domain has an ADR location which can be found under <SERVER_HOME>/adr. This is referred to the as the ADR 'Base' location. ADR also has what are known as 'Home' locations. Example: You have a domain called 'myDomain' and an associated managed server called 'myServer'. Your admin server is called 'AdminServer'. Your domain home directory is called 'myDomain' and it contains a 'servers' directory. The 'servers' directory contains a directory for the managed server called 'myServer' and here is where you'll find the 'adr' directory which is the ADR 'Base' location for myServer. To get to the ADR 'Home' locations we drill through a few levels: diag/ofm/myDomain/ In an 11.1.1.6 SOA Suite domain you will see 2 directories here, 'myServer' and 'soa-infra'. These are the ADR 'Home' locations. 'myServer' is the 'system' ADR home and contains system level Incidents. 'soa-infra' is the name that SOA Suite used to register with DFW and this ADR home contains SOA Suite related Incidents Each ADR home location contains a series of directories, one of which is called 'incident'. This is where your Incidents are stored. When would you use it? It's a good idea to check on these locations from time to time to see whether a lot of Incidents are being generated. They can be cleaned out by deleting the Incident directories or through the ADRCI tool. If you know that an Incident is of particular interest for an issue you're working with Oracle you can simply zip it up and provide it. How does it relate to the other tools? ADR is obviously very important for DFW since it's where the Incidents are stored. Incidents contain Diagnostic Dumps that may relate to diagnostic logs (ODL) and DMS metrics. The most recent 10 Incident directories are collected by RDA by default and ADRCI relies on the ADR locations to help manage the contents. top ADRCI (Automatic Diagnostics Repository Command Interpreter) ADRCI is a command line tool for packaging and managing Incidents. When would you use it? When purging Incidents from an ADR Home location or when you want to package an Incident along with an offline RDA collection for upload to Oracle Support. How does it relate to the other tools? ADRCI contains a tool called the Incident Packaging System or IPS. This is used to package an Incident for upload to Oracle Support through a Service Request. Starting in 11.1.1.6 IPS will attempt to collect an offline RDA collection and include it with the Incident package. This will only work if Perl is available on the path, otherwise it will give a warning and package only the Incident files. ADRCI Resources: How to Use the Incident Packaging System (IPS) in SOA 11g [ID 1381259.1] ADRCI Documentation top WLDF (WebLogic Diagnostic Framework) WLDF is functionality available in WebLogic Server since version 9. Starting with FMw 11g a link has been added between WLDF and the pre-existing DFW, the WLDF Watch Notification. Let's take a closer look at the flow: There is a need to monitor the performance of your SOA Suite message processing A WLDF Watch is created in the WLS console that will trigger if the average message processing time exceeds 2 seconds. This metric is monitored through a DMS MBean instance. The out of the box DFW Notification (the Notification is called FMWDFW-notification) is added to the Watch. Under the covers this notification is of type JMX. The Watch is triggered when the threshold is exceeded and fires the Notification. DFW has a listener that picks up the Notification and evaluates it according to its rules, etc When it comes to automatic Incident creation, WLDF is a key component with capabilities that will grow over time. When would you use it? When you want to monitor the WLS server log or an MBean metric for some condition and fire a notification when the Watch is triggered. How does it relate to the other tools? WLDF is used to automatically trigger Incident creation through DFW using the DFW Notification. WLDF Resources: How to Monitor Runtime SOA Performance With the Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS) [ID 1368291.1] How To Script the Creation of a SOA WLDF Watch in 11g [ID 1377986.1] WLDF Documentation top

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  • Another Marketing Conference, part one – the best morning sessions.

    - by Roger Hart
    Yesterday I went to Another Marketing Conference. I honestly can’t tell if the title is just tipping over into smug, but in the balance of things that doesn’t matter, because it was a good conference. There was an enjoyable blend of theoretical and practical, and enough inter-disciplinary spread to keep my inner dilettante grinning from ear to ear. Sure, there was a bumpy bit in the middle, with two back-to-back sales pitches and a rather thin overview of the state of the web. But the signal:noise ratio at AMC2012 was impressively high. Here’s the first part of my write-up of the sessions. It’s a bit of a mammoth. It’s also a bit of a mash-up of what was said and what I thought about it. I’ll add links to the videos and slides from the sessions as they become available. Although it was in the morning session, I’ve not included Vanessa Northam’s session on the power of internal comms to build brand ambassadors. It’ll be in the next roundup, as this is already pushing 2.5k words. First, the important stuff. I was keeping a tally, and nobody said “synergy” or “leverage”. I did, however, hear the term “marketeers” six times. Shame on you – you know who you are. 1 – Branding in a post-digital world, Graham Hales This initially looked like being a sales presentation for Interbrand, but Graham pulled it out of the bag a few minutes in. He introduced a model for brand management that was essentially Plan >> Do >> Check >> Act, with Do and Check rolled up together, and went on to stress that this looks like on overall business management model for a reason. Brand has to be part of your overall business strategy and metrics if you’re going to care about it at all. This was the first iteration of what proved to be one of the event’s emergent themes: do it throughout the stack or don’t bother. Graham went on to remind us that brands, in so far as they are owned at all, are owned by and co-created with our customers. Advertising can offer a message to customers, but they provide the expression of a brand. This was a preface to talking about an increasingly chaotic marketplace, with increasingly hard-to-manage purchase processes. Services like Amazon reviews and TripAdvisor (four presenters would make this point) saturate customers with information, and give them a kind of vigilante power to comment on and define brands. Consequentially, they experience a number of “moments of deflection” in our sales funnels. Our control is lessened, and failure to engage can negatively-impact buying decisions increasingly poorly. The clearest example given was the failure of NatWest’s “caring bank” campaign, where staff in branches, customer support, and online presences didn’t align. A discontinuity of experience basically made the campaign worthless, and disgruntled customers talked about it loudly on social media. This in turn presented an opportunity to engage and show caring, but that wasn’t taken. What I took away was that brand (co)creation is ongoing and needs monitoring and metrics. But reciprocally, given you get what you measure, strategy and metrics must include brand if any kind of branding is to work at all. Campaigns and messages must permeate product and service design. What that doesn’t mean (and Graham didn’t say it did) is putting Marketing at the top of the pyramid, and having them bawl demands at Product Management, Support, and Development like an entitled toddler. It’s going to have to be collaborative, and session 6 on internal comms handled this really well. The main thing missing here was substantiating data, and the main question I found myself chewing on was: if we’re building brands collaboratively and in the open, what about the cultural politics of trolling? 2 – Challenging our core beliefs about human behaviour, Mark Earls This was definitely the best show of the day. It was also some of the best content. Mark talked us through nudging, behavioural economics, and some key misconceptions around decision making. Basically, people aren’t rational, they’re petty, reactive, emotional sacks of meat, and they’ll go where they’re led. Comforting stuff. Examples given were the spread of the London Riots and the “discovery” of the mountains of Kong, and the popularity of Susan Boyle, which, in turn made me think about Per Mollerup’s concept of “social wayshowing”. Mark boiled his thoughts down into four key points which I completely failed to write down word for word: People do, then think – Changing minds to change behaviour doesn’t work. Post-rationalization rules the day. See also: mere exposure effects. Spock < Kirk - Emotional/intuitive comes first, then we rationalize impulses. The non-thinking, emotive, reactive processes run much faster than the deliberative ones. People are not really rational decision makers, so  intervening with information may not be appropriate. Maximisers or satisficers? – Related to the last point. People do not consistently, rationally, maximise. When faced with an abundance of choice, they prefer to satisfice than evaluate, and will often follow social leads rather than think. Things tend to converge – Behaviour trends to a consensus normal. When faced with choices people overwhelmingly just do what they see others doing. Humans are extraordinarily good at mirroring behaviours and receiving influence. People “outsource the cognitive load” of choices to the crowd. Mark’s headline quote was probably “the real influence happens at the table next to you”. Reference examples, word of mouth, and social influence are tremendously important, and so talking about product experiences may be more important than talking about products. This reminded me of Kathy Sierra’s “creating bad-ass users” concept of designing to make people more awesome rather than products they like. If we can expose user-awesome, and make sharing easy, we can normalise the behaviours we want. If we normalize the behaviours we want, people should make and post-rationalize the buying decisions we want.  Where we need to be: “A bigger boy made me do it” Where we are: “a wizard did it and ran away” However, it’s worth bearing in mind that some purchasing decisions are personal and informed rather than social and reactive. There’s a quadrant diagram, in fact. What was really interesting, though, towards the end of the talk, was some advice for working out how social your products might be. The standard technology adoption lifecycle graph is essentially about social product diffusion. So this idea isn’t really new. Geoffrey Moore’s “chasm” idea may not strictly apply. However, his concepts of beachheads and reference segments are exactly what is required to normalize and thus enable purchase decisions (behaviour change). The final thing is that in only very few categories does a better product actually affect purchase decision. Where the choice is personal and informed, this is true. But where it’s personal and impulsive, or in any way social, “better” is trumped by popularity, endorsement, or “point of sale salience”. UX, UCD, and e-commerce know this to be true. A better (and easier) experience will always beat “more features”. Easy to use, and easy to observe being used will beat “what the user says they want”. This made me think about the astounding stickiness of rational fallacies, “common sense” and the pathological willful simplifications of the media. Rational fallacies seem like they’re basically the heuristics we use for post-rationalization. If I were profoundly grimy and cynical, I’d suggest deploying a boat-load in our messaging, to see if they’re really as sticky and appealing as they look. 4 – Changing behaviour through communication, Stephen Donajgrodzki This was a fantastic follow up to Mark’s session. Stephen basically talked us through some tactics used in public information/health comms that implement the kind of behavioural theory Mark introduced. The session was largely about how to get people to do (good) things they’re predisposed not to do, and how communication can (and can’t) make positive interventions. A couple of things stood out, in particular “implementation intentions” and how they can be linked to goals. For example, in order to get people to check and test their smoke alarms (a goal intention, rarely actualized  an information campaign will attempt to link this activity to the clocks going back or forward (a strong implementation intention, well-actualized). The talk reinforced the idea that making behaviour changes easy and visible normalizes them and makes them more likely to succeed. To do this, they have to be embodied throughout a product and service cycle. Experiential disconnects undermine the normalization. So campaigns, products, and customer interactions must be aligned. This is underscored by the second section of the presentation, which talked about interventions and pre-conditions for change. Taking the examples of drug addiction and stopping smoking, Stephen showed us a framework for attempting (and succeeding or failing in) behaviour change. He noted that when the change is something people fundamentally want to do, and that is easy, this gets a to simpler. Coordinated, easily-observed environmental pressures create preconditions for change and build motivation. (price, pub smoking ban, ad campaigns, friend quitting, declining social acceptability) A triggering even leads to a change attempt. (getting a cold and panicking about how bad the cough is) Interventions can be made to enable an attempt (NHS services, public information, nicotine patches) If it succeeds – yay. If it fails, there’s strong negative enforcement. Triggering events seem largely personal, but messaging can intervene in the creation of preconditions and in supporting decisions. Stephen talked more about systems of thinking and “bounded rationality”. The idea being that to enable change you need to break through “automatic” thinking into “reflective” thinking. Disruption and emotion are great tools for this, but that is only the start of the process. It occurs to me that a great deal of market research is focused on determining triggers rather than analysing necessary preconditions. Although they are presumably related. The final section talked about setting goals. Marketing goals are often seen as deriving directly from business goals. However, marketing may be unable to deliver on these directly where decision and behaviour-change processes are involved. In those cases, marketing and communication goals should be to create preconditions. They should also consider priming and norms. Content marketing and brand awareness are good first steps here, as brands can be heuristics in decision making for choice-saturated consumers, or those seeking education. 5 – The power of engaged communities and how to build them, Harriet Minter (the Guardian) The meat of this was that you need to let communities define and establish themselves, and be quick to react to their needs. Harriet had been in charge of building the Guardian’s community sites, and learned a lot about how they come together, stabilize  grow, and react. Crucially, they can’t be about sales or push messaging. A community is not just an audience. It’s essential to start with what this particular segment or tribe are interested in, then what they want to hear. Eventually you can consider – in light of this – what they might want to buy, but you can’t start with the product. A community won’t cohere around one you’re pushing. Her tips for community building were (again, sorry, not verbatim): Set goals Have some targets. Community building sounds vague and fluffy, but you can have (and adjust) concrete goals. Think like a start-up This is the “lean” stuff. Try things, fail quickly, respond. Don’t restrict platforms Let the audience choose them, and be aware of their differences. For example, LinkedIn is very different to Twitter. Track your stats Related to the first point. Keeping an eye on the numbers lets you respond. They should be qualified, however. If you want a community of enterprise decision makers, headcount alone may be a bad metric – have you got CIOs, or just people who want to get jobs by mingling with CIOs? Build brand advocates Do things to involve people and make them awesome, and they’ll cheer-lead for you. The last part really got my attention. Little bits of drive-by kindness go a long way. But more than that, genuinely helping people turns them into powerful advocates. Harriet gave an example of the Guardian engaging with an aspiring journalist on its Q&A forums. Through a series of serendipitous encounters he became a BBC producer, and now enthusiastically speaks up for the Guardian community sites. Cultivating many small, authentic, influential voices may have a better pay-off than schmoozing the big guys. This could be particularly important in the context of Mark and Stephen’s models of social, endorsement-led, and example-led decision making. There’s a lot here I haven’t covered, and it may be worth some follow-up on community building. Thoughts I was quite sceptical of nudge theory and behavioural economics. First off it sounds too good to be true, and second it sounds too sinister to permit. But I haven’t done the background reading. So I’m going to, and if it seems to hold real water, and if it’s possible to do it ethically (Stephen’s presentations suggests it may be) then it’s probably worth exploring. The message seemed to be: change what people do, and they’ll work out why afterwards. Moreover, the people around them will do it too. Make the things you want them to do extraordinarily easy and very, very visible. Normalize and support the decisions you want them to make, and they’ll make them. In practice this means not talking about the thing, but showing the user-awesome. Glib? Perhaps. But it feels worth considering. Also, if I ever run a marketing conference, I’m going to ban speakers from using examples from Apple. Quite apart from not being consistently generalizable, it’s becoming an irritating cliché.

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  • Inside the Concurrent Collections: ConcurrentDictionary

    - by Simon Cooper
    Using locks to implement a thread-safe collection is rather like using a sledgehammer - unsubtle, easy to understand, and tends to make any other tool redundant. Unlike the previous two collections I looked at, ConcurrentStack and ConcurrentQueue, ConcurrentDictionary uses locks quite heavily. However, it is careful to wield locks only where necessary to ensure that concurrency is maximised. This will, by necessity, be a higher-level look than my other posts in this series, as there is quite a lot of code and logic in ConcurrentDictionary. Therefore, I do recommend that you have ConcurrentDictionary open in a decompiler to have a look at all the details that I skip over. The problem with locks There's several things to bear in mind when using locks, as encapsulated by the lock keyword in C# and the System.Threading.Monitor class in .NET (if you're unsure as to what lock does in C#, I briefly covered it in my first post in the series): Locks block threads The most obvious problem is that threads waiting on a lock can't do any work at all. No preparatory work, no 'optimistic' work like in ConcurrentQueue and ConcurrentStack, nothing. It sits there, waiting to be unblocked. This is bad if you're trying to maximise concurrency. Locks are slow Whereas most of the methods on the Interlocked class can be compiled down to a single CPU instruction, ensuring atomicity at the hardware level, taking out a lock requires some heavy lifting by the CLR and the operating system. There's quite a bit of work required to take out a lock, block other threads, and wake them up again. If locks are used heavily, this impacts performance. Deadlocks When using locks there's always the possibility of a deadlock - two threads, each holding a lock, each trying to aquire the other's lock. Fortunately, this can be avoided with careful programming and structured lock-taking, as we'll see. So, it's important to minimise where locks are used to maximise the concurrency and performance of the collection. Implementation As you might expect, ConcurrentDictionary is similar in basic implementation to the non-concurrent Dictionary, which I studied in a previous post. I'll be using some concepts introduced there, so I recommend you have a quick read of it. So, if you were implementing a thread-safe dictionary, what would you do? The naive implementation is to simply have a single lock around all methods accessing the dictionary. This would work, but doesn't allow much concurrency. Fortunately, the bucketing used by Dictionary allows a simple but effective improvement to this - one lock per bucket. This allows different threads modifying different buckets to do so in parallel. Any thread making changes to the contents of a bucket takes the lock for that bucket, ensuring those changes are thread-safe. The method that maps each bucket to a lock is the GetBucketAndLockNo method: private void GetBucketAndLockNo( int hashcode, out int bucketNo, out int lockNo, int bucketCount) { // the bucket number is the hashcode (without the initial sign bit) // modulo the number of buckets bucketNo = (hashcode & 0x7fffffff) % bucketCount; // and the lock number is the bucket number modulo the number of locks lockNo = bucketNo % m_locks.Length; } However, this does require some changes to how the buckets are implemented. The 'implicit' linked list within a single backing array used by the non-concurrent Dictionary adds a dependency between separate buckets, as every bucket uses the same backing array. Instead, ConcurrentDictionary uses a strict linked list on each bucket: This ensures that each bucket is entirely separate from all other buckets; adding or removing an item from a bucket is independent to any changes to other buckets. Modifying the dictionary All the operations on the dictionary follow the same basic pattern: void AlterBucket(TKey key, ...) { int bucketNo, lockNo; 1: GetBucketAndLockNo( key.GetHashCode(), out bucketNo, out lockNo, m_buckets.Length); 2: lock (m_locks[lockNo]) { 3: Node headNode = m_buckets[bucketNo]; 4: Mutate the node linked list as appropriate } } For example, when adding another entry to the dictionary, you would iterate through the linked list to check whether the key exists already, and add the new entry as the head node. When removing items, you would find the entry to remove (if it exists), and remove the node from the linked list. Adding, updating, and removing items all follow this pattern. Performance issues There is a problem we have to address at this point. If the number of buckets in the dictionary is fixed in the constructor, then the performance will degrade from O(1) to O(n) when a large number of items are added to the dictionary. As more and more items get added to the linked lists in each bucket, the lookup operations will spend most of their time traversing a linear linked list. To fix this, the buckets array has to be resized once the number of items in each bucket has gone over a certain limit. (In ConcurrentDictionary this limit is when the size of the largest bucket is greater than the number of buckets for each lock. This check is done at the end of the TryAddInternal method.) Resizing the bucket array and re-hashing everything affects every bucket in the collection. Therefore, this operation needs to take out every lock in the collection. Taking out mutiple locks at once inevitably summons the spectre of the deadlock; two threads each hold a lock, and each trying to acquire the other lock. How can we eliminate this? Simple - ensure that threads never try to 'swap' locks in this fashion. When taking out multiple locks, always take them out in the same order, and always take out all the locks you need before starting to release them. In ConcurrentDictionary, this is controlled by the AcquireLocks, AcquireAllLocks and ReleaseLocks methods. Locks are always taken out and released in the order they are in the m_locks array, and locks are all released right at the end of the method in a finally block. At this point, it's worth pointing out that the locks array is never re-assigned, even when the buckets array is increased in size. The number of locks is fixed in the constructor by the concurrencyLevel parameter. This simplifies programming the locks; you don't have to check if the locks array has changed or been re-assigned before taking out a lock object. And you can be sure that when a thread takes out a lock, another thread isn't going to re-assign the lock array. This would create a new series of lock objects, thus allowing another thread to ignore the existing locks (and any threads controlling them), breaking thread-safety. Consequences of growing the array Just because we're using locks doesn't mean that race conditions aren't a problem. We can see this by looking at the GrowTable method. The operation of this method can be boiled down to: private void GrowTable(Node[] buckets) { try { 1: Acquire first lock in the locks array // this causes any other thread trying to take out // all the locks to block because the first lock in the array // is always the one taken out first // check if another thread has already resized the buckets array // while we were waiting to acquire the first lock 2: if (buckets != m_buckets) return; 3: Calculate the new size of the backing array 4: Node[] array = new array[size]; 5: Acquire all the remaining locks 6: Re-hash the contents of the existing buckets into array 7: m_buckets = array; } finally { 8: Release all locks } } As you can see, there's already a check for a race condition at step 2, for the case when the GrowTable method is called twice in quick succession on two separate threads. One will successfully resize the buckets array (blocking the second in the meantime), when the second thread is unblocked it'll see that the array has already been resized & exit without doing anything. There is another case we need to consider; looking back at the AlterBucket method above, consider the following situation: Thread 1 calls AlterBucket; step 1 is executed to get the bucket and lock numbers. Thread 2 calls GrowTable and executes steps 1-5; thread 1 is blocked when it tries to take out the lock in step 2. Thread 2 re-hashes everything, re-assigns the buckets array, and releases all the locks (steps 6-8). Thread 1 is unblocked and continues executing, but the calculated bucket and lock numbers are no longer valid. Between calculating the correct bucket and lock number and taking out the lock, another thread has changed where everything is. Not exactly thread-safe. Well, a similar problem was solved in ConcurrentStack and ConcurrentQueue by storing a local copy of the state, doing the necessary calculations, then checking if that state is still valid. We can use a similar idea here: void AlterBucket(TKey key, ...) { while (true) { Node[] buckets = m_buckets; int bucketNo, lockNo; GetBucketAndLockNo( key.GetHashCode(), out bucketNo, out lockNo, buckets.Length); lock (m_locks[lockNo]) { // if the state has changed, go back to the start if (buckets != m_buckets) continue; Node headNode = m_buckets[bucketNo]; Mutate the node linked list as appropriate } break; } } TryGetValue and GetEnumerator And so, finally, we get onto TryGetValue and GetEnumerator. I've left these to the end because, well, they don't actually use any locks. How can this be? Whenever you change a bucket, you need to take out the corresponding lock, yes? Indeed you do. However, it is important to note that TryGetValue and GetEnumerator don't actually change anything. Just as immutable objects are, by definition, thread-safe, read-only operations don't need to take out a lock because they don't change anything. All lockless methods can happily iterate through the buckets and linked lists without worrying about locking anything. However, this does put restrictions on how the other methods operate. Because there could be another thread in the middle of reading the dictionary at any time (even if a lock is taken out), the dictionary has to be in a valid state at all times. Every change to state has to be made visible to other threads in a single atomic operation (all relevant variables are marked volatile to help with this). This restriction ensures that whatever the reading threads are doing, they never read the dictionary in an invalid state (eg items that should be in the collection temporarily removed from the linked list, or reading a node that has had it's key & value removed before the node itself has been removed from the linked list). Fortunately, all the operations needed to change the dictionary can be done in that way. Bucket resizes are made visible when the new array is assigned back to the m_buckets variable. Any additions or modifications to a node are done by creating a new node, then splicing it into the existing list using a single variable assignment. Node removals are simply done by re-assigning the node's m_next pointer. Because the dictionary can be changed by another thread during execution of the lockless methods, the GetEnumerator method is liable to return dirty reads - changes made to the dictionary after GetEnumerator was called, but before the enumeration got to that point in the dictionary. It's worth listing at this point which methods are lockless, and which take out all the locks in the dictionary to ensure they get a consistent view of the dictionary: Lockless: TryGetValue GetEnumerator The indexer getter ContainsKey Takes out every lock (lockfull?): Count IsEmpty Keys Values CopyTo ToArray Concurrent principles That covers the overall implementation of ConcurrentDictionary. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of this sophisticated collection. That I leave to you. However, we've looked at enough to be able to extract some useful principles for concurrent programming: Partitioning When using locks, the work is partitioned into independant chunks, each with its own lock. Each partition can then be modified concurrently to other partitions. Ordered lock-taking When a method does need to control the entire collection, locks are taken and released in a fixed order to prevent deadlocks. Lockless reads Read operations that don't care about dirty reads don't take out any lock; the rest of the collection is implemented so that any reading thread always has a consistent view of the collection. That leads us to the final collection in this little series - ConcurrentBag. Lacking a non-concurrent analogy, it is quite different to any other collection in the class libraries. Prepare your thinking hats!

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  • Abstracting functionality

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/08/22/abstracting-functionality.aspxWhat is more important than data? Functionality. Yes, I strongly believe we should switch to a functionality over data mindset in programming. Or actually switch back to it. Focus on functionality Functionality once was at the core of software development. Back when algorithms were the first thing you heard about in CS classes. Sure, data structures, too, were important - but always from the point of view of algorithms. (Niklaus Wirth gave one of his books the title “Algorithms + Data Structures” instead of “Data Structures + Algorithms” for a reason.) The reason for the focus on functionality? Firstly, because software was and is about doing stuff. Secondly because sufficient performance was hard to achieve, and only thirdly memory efficiency. But then hardware became more powerful. That gave rise to a new mindset: object orientation. And with it functionality was devalued. Data took over its place as the most important aspect. Now discussions revolved around structures motivated by data relationships. (John Beidler gave his book the title “Data Structures and Algorithms: An Object Oriented Approach” instead of the other way around for a reason.) Sure, this data could be embellished with functionality. But nevertheless functionality was second. When you look at (domain) object models what you mostly find is (domain) data object models. The common object oriented approach is: data aka structure over functionality. This is true even for the most modern modeling approaches like Domain Driven Design. Look at the literature and what you find is recommendations on how to get data structures right: aggregates, entities, value objects. I´m not saying this is what object orientation was invented for. But I´m saying that´s what I happen to see across many teams now some 25 years after object orientation became mainstream through C++, Delphi, and Java. But why should we switch back? Because software development cannot become truly agile with a data focus. The reason for that lies in what customers need first: functionality, behavior, operations. To be clear, that´s not why software is built. The purpose of software is to be more efficient than the alternative. Money mainly is spent to get a certain level of quality (e.g. performance, scalability, security etc.). But without functionality being present, there is nothing to work on the quality of. What customers want is functionality of a certain quality. ASAP. And tomorrow new functionality needs to be added, existing functionality needs to be changed, and quality needs to be increased. No customer ever wanted data or structures. Of course data should be processed. Data is there, data gets generated, transformed, stored. But how the data is structured for this to happen efficiently is of no concern to the customer. Ask a customer (or user) whether she likes the data structured this way or that way. She´ll say, “I don´t care.” But ask a customer (or user) whether he likes the functionality and its quality this way or that way. He´ll say, “I like it” (or “I don´t like it”). Build software incrementally From this very natural focus of customers and users on functionality and its quality follows we should develop software incrementally. That´s what Agility is about. Deliver small increments quickly and often to get frequent feedback. That way less waste is produced, and learning can take place much easier (on the side of the customer as well as on the side of developers). An increment is some added functionality or quality of functionality.[1] So as it turns out, Agility is about functionality over whatever. But software developers’ thinking is still stuck in the object oriented mindset of whatever over functionality. Bummer. I guess that (at least partly) explains why Agility always hits a glass ceiling in projects. It´s a clash of mindsets, of cultures. Driving software development by demanding small increases in functionality runs against thinking about software as growing (data) structures sprinkled with functionality. (Excuse me, if this sounds a bit broad-brush. But you get my point.) The need for abstraction In the end there need to be data structures. Of course. Small and large ones. The phrase functionality over data does not deny that. It´s not functionality instead of data or something. It´s just over, i.e. functionality should be thought of first. It´s a tad more important. It´s what the customer wants. That´s why we need a way to design functionality. Small and large. We need to be able to think about functionality before implementing it. We need to be able to reason about it among team members. We need to be able to communicate our mental models of functionality not just by speaking about them, but also on paper. Otherwise reasoning about it does not scale. We learned thinking about functionality in the small using flow charts, Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams, pseudo code, or UML sequence diagrams. That´s nice and well. But it does not scale. You can use these tools to describe manageable algorithms. But it does not work for the functionality triggered by pressing the “1-Click Order” on an amazon product page for example. There are several reasons for that, I´d say. Firstly, the level of abstraction over code is negligible. It´s essentially non-existent. Drawing a flow chart or writing pseudo code or writing actual code is very, very much alike. All these tools are about control flow like code is.[2] In addition all tools are computationally complete. They are about logic which is expressions and especially control statements. Whatever you code in Java you can fully (!) describe using a flow chart. And then there is no data. They are about control flow and leave out the data altogether. Thus data mostly is assumed to be global. That´s shooting yourself in the foot, as I hope you agree. Even if it´s functionality over data that does not mean “don´t think about data”. Right to the contrary! Functionality only makes sense with regard to data. So data needs to be in the picture right from the start - but it must not dominate the thinking. The above tools fail on this. Bottom line: So far we´re unable to reason in a scalable and abstract manner about functionality. That´s why programmers are so driven to start coding once they are presented with a problem. Programming languages are the only tool they´ve learned to use to reason about functional solutions. Or, well, there might be exceptions. Mathematical notation and SQL may have come to your mind already. Indeed they are tools on a higher level of abstraction than flow charts etc. That´s because they are declarative and not computationally complete. They leave out details - in order to deliver higher efficiency in devising overall solutions. We can easily reason about functionality using mathematics and SQL. That´s great. Except for that they are domain specific languages. They are not general purpose. (And they don´t scale either, I´d say.) Bummer. So to be more precise we need a scalable general purpose tool on a higher than code level of abstraction not neglecting data. Enter: Flow Design. Abstracting functionality using data flows I believe the solution to the problem of abstracting functionality lies in switching from control flow to data flow. Data flow very naturally is not about logic details anymore. There are no expressions and no control statements anymore. There are not even statements anymore. Data flow is declarative by nature. With data flow we get rid of all the limiting traits of former approaches to modeling functionality. In addition, nomen est omen, data flows include data in the functionality picture. With data flows, data is visibly flowing from processing step to processing step. Control is not flowing. Control is wherever it´s needed to process data coming in. That´s a crucial difference and needs some rewiring in your head to be fully appreciated.[2] Since data flows are declarative they are not the right tool to describe algorithms, though, I´d say. With them you don´t design functionality on a low level. During design data flow processing steps are black boxes. They get fleshed out during coding. Data flow design thus is more coarse grained than flow chart design. It starts on a higher level of abstraction - but then is not limited. By nesting data flows indefinitely you can design functionality of any size, without losing sight of your data. Data flows scale very well during design. They can be used on any level of granularity. And they can easily be depicted. Communicating designs using data flows is easy and scales well, too. The result of functional design using data flows is not algorithms (too low level), but processes. Think of data flows as descriptions of industrial production lines. Data as material runs through a number of processing steps to be analyzed, enhances, transformed. On the top level of a data flow design might be just one processing step, e.g. “execute 1-click order”. But below that are arbitrary levels of flows with smaller and smaller steps. That´s not layering as in “layered architecture”, though. Rather it´s a stratified design à la Abelson/Sussman. Refining data flows is not your grandpa´s functional decomposition. That was rooted in control flows. Refining data flows does not suffer from the limits of functional decomposition against which object orientation was supposed to be an antidote. Summary I´ve been working exclusively with data flows for functional design for the past 4 years. It has changed my life as a programmer. What once was difficult is now easy. And, no, I´m not using Clojure or F#. And I´m not a async/parallel execution buff. Designing the functionality of increments using data flows works great with teams. It produces design documentation which can easily be translated into code - in which then the smallest data flow processing steps have to be fleshed out - which is comparatively easy. Using a systematic translation approach code can mirror the data flow design. That way later on the design can easily be reproduced from the code if need be. And finally, data flow designs play well with object orientation. They are a great starting point for class design. But that´s a story for another day. To me data flow design simply is one of the missing links of systematic lightweight software design. There are also other artifacts software development can produce to get feedback, e.g. process descriptions, test cases. But customers can be delighted more easily with code based increments in functionality. ? No, I´m not talking about the endless possibilities this opens for parallel processing. Data flows are useful independently of multi-core processors and Actor-based designs. That´s my whole point here. Data flows are good for reasoning and evolvability. So forget about any special frameworks you might need to reap benefits from data flows. None are necessary. Translating data flow designs even into plain of Java is possible. ?

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